


All It Takes

by Fionavar



Category: Neverwinter Nights
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 02:24:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 82
Words: 176,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionavar/pseuds/Fionavar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some dreams aren't safe even for a dreamwalker, but when faced with a woman who's apparently not interested in him, what's a hagspawn to do? A Mask of the Betrayer story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tarva

Gannayev, Gann-of-Dreams, spirit shaman and dreamwalker, handsomest hagspawn in Rashemen – not that he'd yet seen one of his kind who was even remotely likely to challenge the self-proclaimed latter title – lay back in his jail cell and stretched luxuriously. Easy, here, to forget about the angry farmers and their tempting daughters, forget about the prejudices of the locals and their utter lack of a sense of humour, easy to forget about... whatever that particularly forgettable thing had been.

Not so easy to ignore the furious spirit army outside the city gates, but Gann was doing his not-inconsiderable best. Drifting into sleep, beginning to shape himself a dream... In short, life was pretty good. Hearing that thought cross his mind should have been his first clue, if he wasn't counting the angry spirit horde, or the voices outside his cell. The Rashemi simply didn't go jail-visiting.

The door to his cell swung open. He didn't even bother to look up. "Ah, more jailors come to rattle my cage?" His voice faltered a little as a huge presence, seemingly made of emptiness, dissolution, and hunger rolled into the cell, almost cloaking one of the two women who came in with it. Since it didn't seem as it was about to attack him, though, he recovered. “Here I was, settling into a relaxing dream, now you've gone and spoiled it.”

"Your cell doesn't have bars to rattle," replied a soft female voice. Not alluring, Gann decided regretfully; just tired. “It has stone walls with wards inscribed on them." Now, was that sarcasm, or a distressingly literal frame of mind?

"Not very well." Another woman. "And someone's altered them... from the inside, and with considerable skill." Huh. This pair might be actually worth talking to. He sat up and looked at them. One was examining the wards – the second speaker, he assumed – her skin slightly golden, her eyes large and dark. That was all he could see, her dark robes hiding most of her figure, and its hood hiding most of her head, but she was definitely a beauty, which made a nice change from the warden, the only other woman he'd seen with his waking eyes in weeks. The dreaming eye, of course, was another matter entirely.

The other woman – the one he could scarcely feel behind the emptiness - was looking straight at him, her face entirely neutral. Interesting... and an interesting face, too. All angles, sharp and intense. In fact, Gann decided, that wasn't a bad description of the woman as a whole. Inky blue-black hair, tucked behind slightly-pointed ears, very pale skin, dark shadows under her eyes, very nearly the same dark blue colour. Been under a lot of tension for a very long time, if Gann was any judge of women – which he was - which looked a little odd, considering how young she appeared. Not the only odd thing, either; angular worried tired girl in heavy plate armour with a – and just how had it not been one of the first things he'd noted? – great big scythe. All in all... intriguing. There was something else, too...

"What crime have you been jailed for?" she asked then. Gann nearly smirked, then decided there was no real reason to restrain himself and smirked away.

"My crime? It is a serious one – you see, I am too handsome to look upon."

"Really." She looked him up and down, studying him thoroughly. The hooded woman put her hand over her mouth, suppressing her amusement, as Gann continued smirking, waiting for the inevitable reaction as her dark eyes finally returned to his face.

He didn't get it.

"Handsome, yes, but I didn't have any problem looking at you. Was I supposed to be struck blind or something?"

"Huh," Gann said. Surely he could have come up with something better than that? Nevertheless, the blank little monosyllable had fallen from his usually eloquent tongue. Her cool appraisal had rather rattled him. It just didn't make sense. Even the oldest and most withered of women, such as his dearly beloved warden, reacted when Gann looked at them _that_ way, and once they'd taken a good look at him, his way to their bed was usually all but clear.

Ah, yes, that was the third of the oddities. Either the woman possessed self-control a paladin would murder for, was genuinely uninterested in him (and his pride insisted that was impossible) or else she simply preferred women. He'd made that mistake before – a pleasant dream-dalliance with a busty blonde, who'd spent minutes playing with his hair, then fled with a shriek when it had become all too clear that her dream-lover wasn't a woman.

That would make sense. One classically beautiful, one with the muscles, spell and sword , and he relaxed slightly. Still had some ground to make up; he'd be damned if he couldn't charm these women, even if neither of them would appreciate the fullest extent of his charms. So to speak.

"This banter is delightful, but something must have brought you here – other than the chance to converse with me."

The women exchanged glances. Not lovers' glances, though; they were deciding how much to tell him. "There's an army of spirits outside the city gates. We're looking for recruits to help us deal with them," the dark haired woman said. Definitely the leader, Gann decided.

"They've arrived, then. With all that pent-up bloodthirst, I would have expected them to take longer." His eyes narrowed. "And I find myself with the suspicion that the blood they seek is yours. Grave robber, are you? Tsk, tsk. One should leave barrows of the ancient bear god alone, lest he come for you in his garishly-coloured furry rage."

A corner of the woman's mouth quirked. As it was the most expressive gesture he'd yet seen her make, Gann felt pretty sure he was back on track. "At least he wasn't afraid to experiment with colour a little. A uniform shade of blue-grey –" she looked him up and down again –"suggests unoriginality more than deliberate aesthetic choice."

The wizard grinned at both of them. "Charming as this is, it's not helping with the furious spirits. Remember them?" Wait a moment. No mistaking a slight warming of her interest as her gaze fell on him. Well, it wasn't impossible, but... he recalculated the body language and expressions between the two women. Not lovers. But then, that meant the other woman...  
"Not the sort of thing I'm likely to forget," she said.

... really? Surely not. He shifted forward a little, lowered his voice a little. Turned up the charm a little. "So, entertain me, brave one. Why should one such as I follow you into such a hopeless battle?"

She didn't move away from him, but the strongest reaction she displayed were raised eyebrows and a slight narrowing of her eyes. "Hopeless? I think you must calculate odds differently than I would. My companion, Safiya –" the hooded woman nodded politely- "is a very powerful wizard. I admit I'm a stranger here, but a weapon master – Tarva El-Auri, should you be interested – can do a great deal of damage in almost any circumstance. We defeated Okku within his barrow. And we... I... have already destroyed a powerful telthor utterly." Her face grew even more stony for a moment. Clearly there was something about that incident that she was not entirely happy with. "To be honest with you, I have no idea if it will happen again-" curious, Gann thought, already it's not something she did, but something that happened. Food for thought- "and my guess is that's what enraged Okku enough to come after me." She shrugged. "So that's what I'm offering. Amnesty for the crime of being too handsome to look upon-" her eyes swept him again, and this time Gann was almost sure they were amused-" in exchange for your aid against your garish bear god. Think of it as a chance for some destructive aesthetic criticism, if you like."

A woman with a sharp wit, apparently entirely uninterested in him, offering him the chance to fight against an army of furious telthors. For a moment, his unselfish instinct towards the preservation of his hide rose to the fore. He owed it to the world – and the farmers' daughters, of course – to keep Gann alive. He was simply too handsome to be allowed to die.

On the other hand, there was one thing Gann-the-Irresistible could not resist, and that was a challenge.

"Very well, you have a willing soldier at your side- shall we be off?"

Just one dream, Tarva El-Auri, weapon master.

That's all it takes.


	2. Okku

The half-elf threaded a hand through her hair, and yanked softly a couple of times, deep in thought. "You're certain, Gann?"

"You doubt me?" he replied, a note of teasing in his voice. "You'll bruise my sensitive ego, and then what will I do?"

"Go find some farmer's daughter to kiss it better, I'm sure. But after we deal with the angry bear god and his spirit army, mmm?" Tarva slanted a look at him, her face, as always, neutral, despite her words. 

Gann sighed inwardly. For someone used to walking into a woman's dreams and into her bed, the weapon master's resistance to– or ability to completely ignore – his charms was becoming more and more frustrating. Even if the challenge she posed intrigued him.

"Yes, I'm certain," Gann said, pulling his mind back to business. "Just as I was the first time I told you. Defeat the army, and Okku's vulnerable. Until then, however..."

"... he's invincible," Safiya completed the sentence for him. She frowned. "I was really hoping it would be something simpler than that."

"Ah, you're confusing 'simple' with 'easy'," Gann said. "A simple mistake, but really, I would have expected a more nuanced vocabulary –"

"Shut up and let me think!" Tarva muttered, and for a moment, the room was silent. "Can't go straight for Okku, because he's invincible. He's intelligent enough to take out the spell-casters, given the chance, and hates Red Wizards anyway. Can't hold or paralyse him until we deal with the spirits..." She shook her head slightly, a twisted half-smile forming at one corner of her mouth. "Gann, Safiya, could you handle the telthors? If not for Okku?"

The Red Wizard shrugged one shoulder. "Judging from the ones we faced in the barrow – and assuming Gann here can hold up his end – I think so. If everyone stays far enough away, I can call a Meteor Swarm, throw around a few fireballs, that sort of thing."

"Destruction on a mass scale. How inelegant." Gann shook his head. "While I can, of course, wreak havoc as well as our dear Safiya, it pains my sensibilities. And also, it'd be ineffective. Discounting Old Father Bear is hardly a wise idea. It's quite difficult to concentrate on spell-casting when a huge spirit bear with clashing fur is trying to remove your head."

"And I am greatly curious as to what role you would have me play in this battle," a soft voice said. Really, Gann thought, he was surrounded by soft-voiced women, each remarkably attractive in their separate ways. The beautiful bald wizard, the lovely winged cleric, and the sharp-featured, intense weapon master. Well, feminine company was a pleasant beginning, even if the priestess scared him nearly silly, the wizard's bald head was a little off-putting, and the leader didn't seem to notice he was male at all. Being surrounded by women was not unusual – the fact that he wasn't sharing dreams or bedroll with any of them, on the other hand...

"I need you to put as many protections over us as you can; keep clear of the main battle and keep everyone whole, Kaelyn," the half elf said, pushing her disordered hair off her forehead.  
The half-celestial nodded. "Ilmater's blessings shall be yours, and as he grants me strength, I can heal your wounds. But I am not inexperienced with a weapon – surely I can help?" She ignored the small rebellious mutterings from Safiya and Gann, neither of whom were exactly comfortable with the idea of a god's protection.

"Only if you're out of healing," Tarva said, ignoring them. "And if we're in that state... well, we'll have lost." She took a deep breath. "Basically, it works like this: Gann and Safiya take care of the telthors, you keep us alive, and I keep Okku out of everyone's hair until we can take him down."  
There was a very long silence.

There was an outburst from three of the people in the room. The fourth sat and watched them, a smile that was half bitter and half mocking curving her lips. She held up a hand for silence, and got it.

"No, I'm not insane, Safiya, or suicidal, Gann, and thank you, Kaelyn, but I don't need any healing right now. I know what I'm talking about. This isn't the first time I've held an invincible being away from a pair of spellcasters who are undoing his invincibility. And it's going to be far easier than... than it was before, because I didn't have a cleric free last time –" she inclined her head to Kaelyn- "and I think we can count on Okku going after me, personally. So all I need to do is buy you the time to deal with his minions."

"That's 'all'?" Gann asked. It didn't seem to him like a workable plan, even if she could really do what she'd suggested, and disregarding the look on the weapon master's face, which suggested to him that it wasn't quite as simple as it appeared, or that it was connected with bad memories. "Facing an invincible bear god who's baying for your blood, with a weapon that can't hurt him? I suppose you could simply run, and hope he'd chase you..."

"Gannayev." His name cracked from her lips, ringing with authority, and her eyes were fixed on his. He tried to shrug her off, but found he could not. She softened it slightly, by throwing his own words back at him."Simple, not easy. But believe me –" light leapt into her eyes- " I know my limitations. I can – I _will_ hold Okku. But I can't do that indefinitely, even with Kaelyn's aid. I am asking you to trust my judgement in this, as I am trusting that you and Safiya know your own capabilities. Now: do you have another plan?"

Gann shook his head, mutely. The woman was so intense!

"We could always run," Safiya suggested. "Surely there is more than one way out of Mulsantir."  
"We've discussed this before. I don't leave my problems lying around for others to deal with. Nor do I drag others into my battles. If you want to leave, you go. But if you're staying, I need you to trust me," Tarva said, her voice level, almost expressionless. Not entirely, though; she was not as good at controlling her voice as her face. One day, Gann thought, he'd hear the whole story, find out exactly what... but he'd wandered off again. Remarkable, when faced with a suicidal plan, he still found time to obsess over a woman. Her resistance was beginning to affect his ability to concentrate, and it was highly irritating.

"You already know what I'll say to that," Safiya said, and for a moment, her expression nearly matched the half-elf's.

"I do," Tarva said. "Well. Does anybody see any gaping holes in this?"  
"I do not," Kaelyn murmured.

"Apart from the fact it's insane... no," Safiya said.

Gann shook his head. "Well, how could a humble hagspawn such as myself bear to baulk the will of three such lovely ladies?" He bowed mockingly. "Might I suggest an early night, as well? The army outside Mulsantir's gates grows no less, and with battle-plans laid, it seems pointless to give them more time to reinforce their numbers."

Tarva looked at him, the barest hint of something he could not read kindling deep within her dark eyes, even though one corner of her mouth curved slightly upwards. "At your command, Gann." It wouldn't be quite that simple, of course... but tomorrow would be the day.


	3. Again Okku

"Now, Tarva," Gann shouted, as the spirits fell, and Okku became vulnerable. Finally, they could press the attack; Safiya was almost out of spells, and Gann wasn't doing much better himself. Kaelyn – well, he didn't know; all her attention had been focused on the weapon master as she tumbled and feinted, trying to stay just out of reach of Okku's claws and teeth. Whether she'd succeeded or not, Gann wasn't sure, but as he and Safiya rushed forward, he could see that Kaelyn was pale and sweating, and Tarva was not moving with anything like the speed and grace she had been.

Kaelyn brandished her mace, and charged, "For the Crusade!"; Safiya muttered something a lot less wholesome under her breath and fired off the few nastier single-target spells she'd saved, just in case.

Even with a severely reduced spirit army to back him up, Old Father Bear was still full of fight, roaring defiance at the three who dared to attack him. Tarva ducked under one massive, raking paw, as Safiya's spell caught him, draining half his vitality away in one instant; the weapon master's scythe carved a sharp line across his side, and the fire enchantment Safiya had placed on it blazed. Gann chanted as quickly as he dared, attempting to fill whatever Okku used for lungs with water, while Kaelyn brought her mace down on a joint and dodged away when he lashed out.

After that, it got complicated. He could remember glimpses, later; Tarva's face covered in blood, as Okku's claw made a good attempt at removing her scalp; one massive paw sending Safiya flying; a lot of pain, felt and then gone; Kaelyn everywhere at once, healing or attacking as need or opportunity dictated; Tarva slower now, but determined as ever, spinning, whirling, striking, and finally –

"Enough!" Okku cried, and, barely comprehending it, Gann lowered his hands, Kaelyn helped Safiya stand, and Tarva planted the butt of the scythe firmly in the ground and used it as support.

"Hurry," the bear rumbled, panting for breath, his head bowed. "Take your blade, and tear out my throat. Finish it."

"No. Go back to your barrow, Okku. I do not –" Tarva bent nearly double, her scythe falling to the ground, as an enormous black thing erupted from her and spread its many arms wide, reaching for Okku. Gann had never seen anything like it before, but the aura of hunger and emptiness that radiated from it... so that was -

Safiya put her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide in recognition, as a pulsating cord stretched from Okku, through Tarva, and to the thing, which grew bigger, darker, more tangible as it fed on Okku. "Stop it!" Kaelyn cried. "You're draining-"

"Forgive me," Okku's deep voice cut over them all easily. "I tried to stop you." Already he looked smaller, diminished.

"No." It was Tarva's voice – at least, it came from her mouth – but hardly recognisable. She tried to straighten, but the thing shook again, the cord grew thicker, and it seemed inevitable that in a moment –

She screamed, voice raw with pain and will; her hands clenched into fists, knotted with tension; the cord snapped; the dark thing protested as it was denied its prey and slowly sucked back beneath her skin; Tarva wrenched herself upright, shaking with the effort.

"Well, isn't that interesting?" The words that fell out of Gann's mouth were just as much of a surprise to him as they would have been to anyone listening; fortunately, nobody was. Kaelyn and Safiya had hurried to the half-elf's side, Okku was raising his head, looking as incredulous as a multi-coloured bear could manage... and Gann was just standing there, like a fool. He realised that his mouth was still hanging open (how unbecoming) and closed it before more words could spill out.

"You... you spared me, spirit-eater," Okku rumbled.

The last word explained a lot of things. That absence that had nearly masked the woman, the dark thing, the furious spirit army... of all his luck, to get tangled up with this mess. Gann shook his head slightly, vaguely aware that his train of thought was wandering off into the wilds, and returned to paying attention. Safiya was looking similarly enlightened, with a hint of intellectual avarice accompanying it; Kaelyn and Tarva, however, were completely at a loss.

"Spirit-eater?" Tarva asked, her voice hoarse.

"Yes. I knew it when you woke in my barrow. Nakata scented it on you, before you destroyed her. I did not think you had the will to fight what you are. "

"I... oh, gods," Tarva said, and tried to say something more. She failed to shape a word, but for once, all the questions could be seen swirling on her face, and all her emotions. 

Seeing her so open was rather a disconcerting thing, Gann thought idly; he'd seen so much of the neutral mask. Most of his mind, though, was echoing the word: spirit-eater. Spirit-eater. Spirit-eater.

"I have known one other spirit-eater with your strength and mercy." Old Father Bear said. Gann forced himself, again, to pay attention. "On the lake of ice, he spared my life, as you have done today, and I swore an oath to end this curse. That you stand here now... means I failed. So you have inherited the promise I made him; little one, I will see you and Rashemen freed of the spirit-eater."

"I... um, thank you," Tarva said, a little hesitantly. "By 'ending this curse', you're not intending to try and kill me again, are you?"

Okku snorted. "No, little one. You have spared my life, and I shall not take yours. No, I intend to come with you, if you permit me, and... see what can be done."

"Old Father Bear deigns to travel with us?" Gann said, delighted to find his brain and mouth were properly connected again. Okku wanted to travel with them. The god of bears had sworn his loyalty to this woman. Tarva was a spirit-eater. There were so many strange things going on here; the only proper response was flippancy.

And a sudden burst of nostalgia for his safe little prison cell, which didn't contain impervious women who turned out to be spirit-eaters, Red Wizards, angelic priestesses who saw far too much, or ancient bear-gods with old oaths to fulfill.

On the other hand... who could resist the opportunity to find out how all this would end?  
"We are honoured indeed!" Gann swept a low bow to Okku. "I am already here, but it would be pleasant to have another being of legendary beauty and power along. The company of equals is always preferable."

He surprised a weary chuckle from Tarva. "Okku, I would be honoured if you would join me. Pay no attention to Gann; he's not too bad if you can ignore his ego. Admittedly this is a difficult task, since there's not much else to him. Most of the time, we don't bother."

"Such hurtful words from my cursed – and strikingly beautiful – leader! I am deeply-" offended, he was going to say, but was unexpectedly silenced by the combination of a chilling growl from Okku, who seemed a little miffed at being upstaged, and a flat, unfriendly look from Tarva at his final words, her stony neutrality falling back into place.

"If I may interject," Safiya said, shooting an amused glance at them. She studied Tarva carefully, and was apparently relieved at what she saw. She bent to pick up Tarva's scythe and offer it back to her, leaving Kaelyn to support the weapon master. "The Rashemi are a superstitious folk, and I am certain I noted several of them spying during our battle. It would probably be a good idea to find somewhere more private to discuss this, lest we be greeted with hordes of fearful peasants with torches and pitchforks."

"I agree," Kaelyn said. "There is much here I do not understand."

"Tell me about it," Tarva muttered, then raised her voice. "Unless the witches have spirited Magda back, the Veil should still be empty." She eyed Okku. "That's all right with you? You won't feel uncomfortable inside a city or anything, will you?"

The bear shook his head. "I do not care overmuch for cities, but I do not think we will find an answer to your curse in the wilderness, little one. Let us go."


	4. Spirit-Eater

"So, let me see if I've understood correctly. According to the little Safiya's studied on the subject, what Gann's picked up here and there from the spirits, and what Okku remembers, there is only one spirit-eater at a time. Currently, me," Tarva said, after some hours which raised far more questions than they answered. Her voice was steady and uninflected, Gann noted. Either she was very good at taking things in stride, or she hadn't understood all the implications. The latter did not strike him as remotely likely, particularly as she'd grown steadily paler through the discussion.

He looked around at the small group gathered in the Veil. Okku was stretched out on the floor, his head resting on his paws, his relaxed posture belied by the intensity of his gaze; Kaelyn had said very little, content to listen, learn, and occasionally ask to clarify a point; Safiya's concern for the weapon master had been tempered with curiosity. Tarva herself seemed little affected, on the surface; her expression almost perfectly neutral, her voice calm, but it didn't take one as wise in the ways of women as Gann to see deeper. Even if her fear only flickered over her face, he could still see it, could still sense the slight dividing of her attention as she both listened to their words and probed the emptiness rooted in her soul, its hunger, its power.

"Spirits will recognise me as a spirit-eater, a threat to be destroyed, as the local Rashemi may also." She was silent for a moment, and then her voice was quieter, as she thought aloud. "I can – probably – deal with that. If that was all..." She almost visibly shook herself back on topic. "This hunger demands I eat spirits. By doing so, I feed it, and it will crave more and more spirits and eventually consume me. If I deny it, it will start to devour me from the inside anyway. The tales of all the former spirit-eaters all end in madness and death." An accurate summary, but not a hopeful one.

Safiya put a hand on Tarva's shoulder as the half-elf took in a deep, ragged breath and expelled it again. "Yes, but Rashemi folklore is gruesome and pessimistic, and most of their tales end like that. I think the happiest Rashemi story I know ends with two lovers drowning in the same river."

"That's a happy ending?" Gann asked. "No wonder the Rashemi are such a cheerless folk. Why didn't they find a secluded bower and –"

"Thank you, Gann," Safiya cut him off. "Can we focus here?" On Tarva, she carefully didn't say. The bond between the Red Wizard and the half-elf went surprisingly deep for the short time they'd known each other; even now, Gann considered, it wasn't a surprise he'd mistaken them for lovers.

"Mphm. There is little more I know. Perhaps we should go see these witches of yours," Okku said, raising his massive head from his paws.

"Tomorrow," Tarva said. "It's dark out, and we could all use a rest. Remember the battle with the angry spirit army?"

"It had completely slipped my mind, what with the glory of our new ally," Gann said. "The colours of his fur both blind and bedazzle."

"Don't make me regret sparing you in the battle, hagspawn," Okku warned him, not even looking up.

"Tarva is right," Kaelyn said, ignoring the byplay. "We could all use the rest, I think." The cleric led by example, wishing them a good night as she slipped away and into the room the women of the Veil shared. Safiya followed, casting a slightly worried look over her shoulder at Tarva, who hadn't moved at all.

"I will rejoin you tomorrow, little one," Okku said, heaving himself to his feet. "I do not require rest, but I do not care to spend the night within walls." He lumbered out of the Veil; Gann smirked as the sounds of startled Rashemi townsfolk drifted in the door. Tarva remained where she was, her chin in her hands, staring into space, her face blank. The moments passed. "Not so quick to follow good advice as to dispense it?" Gann asked, flicking his hair out of his eyes. "How unexpected."

She sighed, her mind clearly elsewhere even as she summoned up a rebuttal. "Have you never heard someone say 'Do as I say, not as I do?' Most people give good advice only because they've found no use for it themselves."

"Ah, there you have it," Gann said lightly, "I was under the impression that a spirit-eater did not fall into the category of 'most people'. I shall adjust my assumptions accordingly." The words hid a spark of admiration, verging on awe. She'd met an invincible, angry spirit bear in battle, and held him at bay. She'd forced back the ravenous attack of the spirit-eater. She'd found out what she was, and that she was almost certainly headed for a nasty end.

And all that paled in comparison with the fact that she seemed as impervious to his charms as ever.

"Please do," she said, then looked directly at him, a certain tension in her posture, that brought her next words out slowly and formally. "I thank you for your part in the battle today, Gann. We couldn't have done it without you. I shall so inform the hathran tomorrow." She smiled, just slightly, just for an instant, but it was a true smile, and the first he'd ever seen on her face. "And I wish you the best of luck with the farmers' daughters."

His eyebrows shot up. "My, my, are my ears lying to me, or was that a dismissal I just heard?"  
She regarded him steadily. "It was my gratitude. Our bargain was aid against the spirit army in exchange for your freedom. The spirit army's gone, debt paid –" and something flashed over her face at those words, too fast for him to track- "naturally, I assumed you'd want to go enjoy your hard-earned freedom."

"So eager to be rid of me? I believe I am insulted," Gann replied. "No, I think I shall tag along a little longer. I am hardly so selfish as to deprive you of my guidance, or the pleasure of beholding my countenance."

"I shall adjust my assumptions accordingly," Tarva said, amusement flickering in her eyes, and then dying. "With that settled, then, you'd best get some rest." She stood, stretching her arms and rolling her shoulders.

"I had?" Gann said, rising to his feet, standing a little closer to her than politeness would dictate, looking down at her. "What of you? Do you not also go to your virtuous rest?"

"Not just yet," she said, tucking her hair behind her delicately pointed ears, not quite looking at him. She had an abstracted air, listening to something he could not hear, he thought, and then realised, with an unpleasant jerk of reality, just what it was."I... have a great deal to think about."  
Gann watched as she practically bolted for the Veil's exit, and wondered how long the woman could survive the birth of the spirit-eater.


	5. Bishop and Casavir

The dreamscape shattered around him as Gann awoke, assisted by Kaelyn shaking his shoulder. "Simply couldn't go another minute without my company?" he asked, rubbing his eyes. "I was just about to –"

"It's Tarva." The cleric's black eyes were, as always, unreadable, her voice as steady as ever. "I think – I think she's having a nightmare, and I can't wake her –"

"So you chose to wake me instead," Gann sighed. "I am honoured that you turn to me at the first sign of a problem, but really, I could have used the sleep."

"Just look at her!" Kaelyn's soft voice was not capable of expressing exasperation or giving an order, but certainly that was the closest to it Gann had ever heard.

"Anything for our fair leader and the mirror-eyed priestess, then."

The firelight flickered over the small group, adding an illusion of warmth to the snowy desolation of the Ashenwood, gilding the little of Safiya's skin that was exposed, dying the few white patches of Okku's fur an unflattering yellow, and illuminating the sleeping half-elf, who was violently wrenching herself about. With a muttered curse for his interrupted sleep, Gann flung himself around the circle of firelight, and knelt by her side. Fragments of words escaped her mouth, set in lines of old, remembered pain. Kaelyn knelt beside him as he shook her shoulder and called her name.

No response, unless you counted the half-formed sob – a sound Gann had never heard from the weapon master– and the way she turned from him and tried to curl into a ball. "Most interesting," he muttered absently. Awake, the woman's sharp features rarely betrayed any emotion except the constant strain of the spirit-eater curse. Now, though, there was a truer tale of pain and power, and a strength that Gann found scared him more than a little.

"Can you –"

"Enter her dream?" Gann interrupted the Dove's question. In any other case, it would have been an insult to even ask. Where Tarva was concerned, though... He'd tried. Oh, how he'd tried. Several times a night, for several weeks, he'd shaped a dream for her, or tried to enter hers, and gotten precisely nowhere. Run up against a big blank wall, to the point where he'd wondered whether she simply did not dream, and whether, then, she was worth pursuing at all... 

Unfortunately, his pride wouldn't let him leave her alone.

There had been just the one time, after the strange dream at the Wells of Lurue. He'd followed her into the barrow-dream easily enough, and found his interest aroused further at the strange undead creature she'd faced there, and the fragment of mask she'd brought out to the waking world. That night, he'd tried to hook onto the trace of her dream-self the waters of the Well had shown, and he had partially succeeded...

... for a long moment, ten heartbeats, no more. A wall of shimmering force had stretched between two statues many times taller than he. The building was ancient, and trembling, barely held together. There were bodies strewn about him – a woman in mage's robes, one bearing horns and tail, a man in full plate armour, another in leathers, a bow discarded by his side. Gann pressed against the glowing barrier and strained his eyes. He knew that profile, barely glimpsed under a heavy helmet, knew the effort that distorted her features in combat, but even that brief glimpse surprised him. The stony mask he knew so well was entirely absent, and he could see her determination, the tracks of tears down her face as she struggled, fighting alone against a tide of darkness...

... and then the dream has shifted violently about him, and the sense of her presence was gone, replaced by the primal hunger of the spirit-eater curse, the one he'd touched at the Wells of Lurue, and it swept him into suffocating darkness, his limbs stretching, breaking, the pleading voices of millions of presences about him, and the hunger slowly devouring them all...

... and Gann had woken, and decided it was really better to steer clear of her dreams for a while. It was frustrating to be unable to reach the woman, and the spirit-eater's dreams were entirely too unsettling for his tastes.

So the prospect of deliberately trying to find a way into Tarva's nightmare was less than appealing. Nevertheless... 

"Of course," Gann answered. "Any dream-road is mine to walk."

Kaelyn merely looked at him, her black eyes seeing far too much, as always... but Tarva's evident distress pulled at her more strongly than Gann's half-lies, and she bent again to try and wake the half-elf, steadily chanting a plea to Ilmater.

Gann shook his head – prayer instead of action – took a deep breath, and reached into Tarva's dreams...

...this time, he finds himself at the beginning of a spiral path, the sense of her presence - not the spirit-eater's – strong around him. There is a depth to it that surprises him, until he recognises it; for reasons best known only to themselves, the Rashemi spirits have gifted her with the Dreamer's Eye. No wonder he hadn't been able to access her dreams; even untutored, she would have been able to mount some resistance, and contending with the spirit-eater curse as well... but that didn't answer the question of why she is so open tonight, nor the underlying problem of the nightmare.

Gann treads the spiral path carefully, watching, listening, alert to every nuance, every sense. She is not here; she has gone deeper in, and he can only hope she has left the way open behind her. As he approaches the centre of the spiral, he hears voices; rounding the last corner, two men stand before him.

He doesn't like the look of either of them much. One, black-haired, stands rigidly to attention. The head of his warhammer rests on his broad shoulders, the weapon and heavy plate armour seemingly no burden. His face is serious; like a Rashemi, Gann thinks, this man has probably never laughed in his life. There are lines about his eyes that tell of loss; the expression in their pale depths is troubled – and there's a barely suppressed hostility. But that hostility isn't focused on the dream-walker; its target is the man that stands opposite him, whose tawny eyes are equally expressive of contempt and despair.

He is shorter, the tawny-eyed man, although that might be merely his stance; low, tense, a wolf about to spring for the throat. His hair is short, and bristles like an animal's fur. So much hatred and rage, it practically radiates from him; the hand that grips his bow is white-knuckled with tension. There was pain here, too, not suppressed but poured out against the world. A dangerous man, Gann realises, and is grateful that his attention is fixed on the man with the warhammer.

He has seen these two before, in Tarva's dream; both lying dead upon a floor of cold stone; the dark-haired man with an arrow through his eye, the other very nearly sheared in half by some sharp blade. Now the voices (their voices?) begin to form clearly into words. He can only hear fragments of sentences, as the voices interrupt each other; one deep and measured, the other laced with dark sarcasm.

_... you warm my heart, you_  
really do... nothing could touch me  
in your presence... just you and me...  
you shine brightly to me... aren't you  
a bright ray of hope?... there is death  
in the air this night... you  
might live through this... I wish  
to protect you... that's why  
it has to end this way... my lady... 

... on and on, the voices speak, until they begin to repeat themselves, but still do not fall silent. For a few, brief moments, Gann almost thinks he can hear another voice behind them (male? Slightly nasal?) but it is never clear. It's not much of a dream – he's almost disappointed in the woman – but then he reminds himself that although these two men may be important, this is merely the beginning, she did not linger here, and neither should he. He steps forward, and instantly their gazes turn to him, the voices continue to sound in the air, and they do not speak.  
Words don't come easily to him, either. "If you will... excuse me, I am looking for Tarva. Did she pass this way?"

The dark-haired man opens his mouth, but the other cuts across him easily. "Well, now, what's it matter to you if she did?" The mocking voice matches the face, and as the man with the bow speaks, the other one is left alone, muttering to itself in the air (unless there is a third. Gann still cannot be sure, and it bothers him). "What's a hagspawn want with the great Knight Captain of Crossroad Keep? Can't imagine she'd be too happy about you crawling around in her head."

"Bishop," the dark-haired man almost growls. It's a warning of sorts, Gann thinks, but more importantly, it's the other voice, and it's the tawny-eyed man's name.

"Ah, let me guess," Bishop says. "You're dangling after the fickle wench, too-"

"Do not speak of her that way!" the other man snaps, a flare of emotion that has Gann taking a step back. For one moment, the dark-haired man is very nearly in a killing rage.

"Might want to rethink that," Bishop drawls at Gann, ignoring the other entirely. "You'll only end up here. Dead, an unpleasant, half-forgotten memory –" but Gann sees the shimmering of a dreamscape portal opening behind Bishop, and although he's curious to see just what else these two have to say, he hears again the sound of her sob, tormented by some deeper nightmare, and he springs past them and into the portal.


	6. Again Bishop and Casavir

... it's dark, here; there are torches set at intervals along the wall, but they don't quite dispel the gloom. Gann hears soft footsteps, and then sees Tarva walk towards him. It takes him a moment to realise that this isn't her, exactly, but a dream-self, a memory (and just how is she maintaining that?). She's unarmoured, which is something Gann has only seen for brief moments, and he briefly appraises the view- slender muscle, sharp-boned, slight curves at hips and breasts - before she's close enough for him to see her face.

It's not that different, really; she still looks tired and strained, but there's an openness to her here, and he can tell that she smiles frequently. Not just at the moment, though; she pads along the shadowy corridor as if every step is an effort. Gann presses himself further into the darkness as she passes; let the dream-current take him where it wills for now.

The corridor seems endless, as she paces down it and he follows. Whether this is true memory, or dream-trickery, he cannot say, only that with every step she seems to move more slowly, until finally she stops and leans against a wall. Her head tilts back, her eyes close, and she sighs. As if it's a signal, Gann sees the one called Bishop step silently from the darkness...

... and he pins her hands above her head, crushing her wrists into the stone, his body traps her against the wall, and his mouth comes down on hers with rather more force than finesse. Gann shifts slightly, uncomfortable; to participate in someone's amorous dreams is one thing, and to witness them another. He turns his head away, and back, and away, equally unable to watch or ignore. As the moments slowly pass by, it dawns on him that something is wrong here. She is utterly still, pinned between the man and the wall; she isn't responding to his kiss, but she isn't fighting him, either.

Finally Bishop eases back, although he still grips her wrists tightly. He looks at her, his mouth set in an ugly line, his eyes cold. He is met with an empty expression, the stony mask Gann has come to know so well. Neither speaks, but the tension crackles between them.

Then Bishop breaks it with a curse, lets her go, and disappears into the shadow. Her mask drops as he disappears, and she stares after him in shock, betrayal, and something almost like terror – as though one she trusted had stabbed her in the gut. The pale half-elf lets herself slid down the wall, her chin coming to rest on her knees as she shudders again and again. Gann starts towards her, not sure what to do, but knowing he has to do something – and a voice speaks, from nowhere, male, low-pitched, slightly familiar. In the stone halls, it echoes like a ghost. "Human males are always in rut. That is how you came to be born. But you... you are not entirely of that blood, and you will not succumb to that weakness. You will not let them touch you." Her face hardens again, and she gets to her feet and walks away, opens a door and closes it behind her. Gann rushes after her, but cannot catch her, and the dreamscape portal opens behind him. Trying to untangle memory from dream, truth from lie and both from symbolism, he enters it...

... and finds himself back at the centre of the spiral path, facing the dark-haired man. Gann turns, but Bishop dissipates before his eyes, his mocking voice once again sounding in the air, repeating its handful of phrases. But Gann can hear a difference; it is weaker now, and that haunting, perhaps of a third voice, is clearer, almost understandable. He turns back to face the man with the warhammer. "Why are you here? What is your business with... her?" the deep voice asks.

Gann notes the hesitation, the self-betraying emphasis, and turns the question around. "Why do you ask?"

The pale eyes regard him steadily, although a ghostly pain passes over them, and the words come falteringly from him. "Always, I wanted to ... protect her. That wish does not change, even here, even now. If you mean her ill..."

"No," Gann says. "Never," and is mildly astonished. Not that he means it – he has never intended to hurt a woman, although it's sometimes been a side-effect – but that he means more than that. That he wants to keep her from harm.

The man nods. "Then may you succeed... where I failed," he says, and dissipates, as Bishop had, leaving his voice chiming softly in the air, and a portal behind him...

... he stands on the broad stone walls of a fortified castle, at night; the moon full and bright above him, the fields stretching out below. Tarva and the dark-haired man are standing a small distance away, both clearly exhausted. They have perhaps comes from battle, Gann decides; although there's been time to get out of their armour and lay their weapons aside, they are both dirty, a little bruised, her hair matted with sweat. Still a dream-projection of the woman; the real one is dream-walking somewhere further yet. Gann feels a little impressed; with only the Dreamer's Eye to aid her, she has somehow constructed all this?

The last of the man's words drift to his ears, and the serious face is filled with a tentative hope, and with fear, as he gazes at the half-elf. "... there is nothing that can stand against us, when we are together – in this life or the next. My sword," and he hesitates, cannot look at her as he forces the words past his reserve, "and... and my heart, are yours."

There is silence. Tarva is rigidly still, and Gann wishes he could see more than her back, he can't tell exactly what's going on here. The man just confessed his love for her, and she says absolutely nothing, makes no move? Still, a part of his mind pipes up, a lost love would account for at least some of her resistance to him; he silences it, too caught up in the scene, trying to understand why she still says nothing. The other man is getting concerned, and turns back to her, searches her face for answers. She shakes her head slightly, and her voice is faint. "Casavir... I don't understand."

He closes his eyes, and swallows; the words hit him almost as a blow. "My lady, I... I love you." He looks at her, still faintly shaking her head, and, greatly daring, takes her hands in his. Her sleeves fall back; he sees the clear, livid marks of Bishop's fingers, dark bruises against her white skin. He draws in a deep breath, finding himself on more solid ground. All the tenderness, all the hesitancy vanishes from his voice, replaced with barely-controlled temper. "Who did this? Who dared lay hands on you?"

"It's not important," Tarva says, and this comes more easily from her.

He looks at her, and Gann can almost see the exact instant he realises – "Bishop," he states, knowing he speaks the truth. "He will pay for this."

"No," Tarva says, her voice cold and commanding. Gann still can't see her face, but whatever her expression, it's enough to make Casavir let go of her hands, and very nearly take a step backwards. He hears the third voice muttering something, but Tarva is louder as she stares the dark-haired man down. "No, you will not make him pay, you will not go after him, you will not even mention this to him."

"Lady-"

"War is at our doorstep, Casavir, war with an undead army led by a being of pure evil who is also quite possibly immortal. Our apparently best hope against that being is the shattered fragments of a gith sword – excuse me, the gith sword – which are being held together by an act of will and the fact that one of shards is embedded in my chest. You will forgive me for being less than sanguine about the chance of victory in all this. So understand me when I say that I will not risk driving away an ally."

He is almost pleading with her now, his head bent like a supplicant's. "You cannot trust him, and you cannot let him get away with-"

"I don't trust him," she interrupts. "But I understand him, and he'll stay loyal – or close enough – just as long as it benefits him. So you won't chase him down to defend my honour; both my honour and my skin can take a little bruising. You'll leave him be. That-" she hesitates, just for a moment, her spine straightening, "that is an order."

Casavir's head snaps up, as though she's just struck him. "Your merest wish is law to me, my lady. You do not need to invoke any further authority. But, please, I... need to know." He's fighting to say this, and Gann can see the question coming as surely as Tarva can. "Did he... did he..."

"No," she says, almost gently. "No, he did not." The pure relief that passes over his face softens them both; for a moment , the turn the conversation took when he saw the bruises on her wrists seems almost forgotten, and his words of love echo in the air, along with the undercurrent of that other voice. She takes a deep breath; even from behind her, Gann can tell she's weighing her next words carefully. "Casavir, the words you have said..." she shakes her head. "Forgive me. I cannot..."

"It does not matter," he says, although both Tarva and Gann can see the lie, and the pain that passes over his face, the effort it takes him to suppress it. "I stand at your side nevertheless." He takes her hand, raises it to his lips. It is almost a farewell. "And I thank you for hearing me. With your permission, I will take my leave now." She nods, and watches him go. She turns, sighs.  
And her eyes are cold.

The third voice rises into audibility. "They will speak of love. The race of man says those words easily, lightly, and the words lose all meaning in their mouths. They will hurt you, they will leave you alone, if you stop to listen to them, if you believe them. As your mother did. You will not let them touch you."

Gann only has time to notice he's not the only one in the shadows – the man Bishop is watching her too - as the portal forms...


	7. Daeghun

... and again, Gann finds himself back at the centre of the dreampath, but this time it is silent. He looks about him; the portal that brought him back has disappeared, and there is no longer a way back along the spiral. There is simply him and the swirling mist. He nudges the dream gently, when nothing happens after long moments, and receives no response. He is not trapped – he, at least, can always wake – but there is no evident way to move deeper in the dream and find her.

"What are you doing here?" a voice demands, low, expressionless, slightly nasal; Gann has heard it before. This time, however, it is coming from directly behind him; he turns slowly, and is caught in the intensely green gaze of the speaker. A small man, even smaller than Tarva; there is the slightest of resemblances to her in his features, but these are marks of a similarity of kind, not of kinship. His ears are sharply pointed, his hair brown, and his face is utterly impassive. Not empty; it is more as though there are simply too many emotions hidden behind it to allow any one feeling to the surface. Some combination of these things prickles along the back of Gann's neck, and forces him to cautious honesty.

"I'm looking for Tarva," Gann says. "Did she pass this way?"

"So to speak. It would be more correct to say that this is the way she left behind her."  
"Why?" The word springs from his mouth before he can stop it.

The elf just looks at him, a flat, unfriendly gaze. "Why do you ask me, dreamwalker? I am only a part of her dream, an echo of the man who raised her. This is your business, not mine."

"You... are her father," Gann said, knowing this was important, trying to figure it out.

"So to speak. I travelled with her mother for a time, but we were never lovers. Her father was a human, and all I ever knew of him was his name. My Shayla – "as he says that name, reverence, love and loss flickers on his face, colours his voice- "promised to care for the child, if anything should happen to the mother... but the same blade took both their lives, and left me to keep her promise."

Gann shook his head slightly. This isn't quite right; the elf is saying far too much, the words spilling from him. "Why do you tell me this?"

"Why do you ask me, dreamwalker? Can't you see it for yourself?"

No, not yet, Gann thinks, and ventures another half-statement. "Bishop and Casavir... you knew them?"

"So to speak. I met them at her Keep. Bishop was a good tracker, for a human; give him a few hundred years, and he would have very nearly been my equal. He travelled with my daughter, for a time. Casavir was a paladin, knight chosen by the gods. I saw him fight, once. He, too, travelled with my daughter, for a time. As you do." The repetitions jar Gann, remind him this is not really a man he speaks to, but a semblance of one constructed in Tarva's dreaming mind. A very irritating one; at least the other two spoke like proper human beings. He finds himself wondering whether she simply did not know this man well enough to construct a more realistic dream of him - but surely that cannot be the case.

"For a time?" he asks, shaking himself from reverie.

"Why do you ask me, dreamwalker? You saw their fate. Are you ready to see it again?"

"Not yet," Gann says, risking arguing with the dream for one final moment. "You raised her, you shaped her. And you are here. You know the curse that is devouring her. You have answers."

"So to speak. I have a question for you, hagspawn. Or questions." The intense eyes pin him once more, piercing through the layers of protections and deceptions Gann holds between himself and the world. "Will you betray her? Will you fail her?"

"No," he says, certain that's what the dream wants to hear, not sure if it's the truth, not really caring. Anything to finally reach the bottom of this, to assuage his curiosity, to find Tarva, wake her up, get back to a peaceful dream without all these questions and problems – fascinating as they may be, Gann has very nearly had enough.

The elf's mouth quirks in a bitter line; Gann can see where Tarva learnt it. "Wrong answer, dreamwalker. We all said that. We all failed her, betrayed her. So will you, when the time comes. Remember-" and he dissipates, as Bishop had, as Casavir had, leaving only a portal behind.  
Gann sighs, hoping he's nearing the end of it now, and steps through...


	8. Garius

... and he's been here before, in her dream of an old ruin. She (still a dream-projection, but he can tell that she's close) faces a tall, robed skeleton, a mismatched group of people about her. Casavir stands at her side, as he'd promised; Bishop is nowhere to be seen. A woman with yellow skin is healing one with horns and tail (he has seen her before), while a dwarf says awkward things like 'there, there' to the patient; a gnome is patting the ankle of a huge golem in a manner that suggests he is trying to comfort it; a female human in robes is glaring at a male elf, dressed similarly, and he is ignoring her; a man with glowing tattoos flanks Tarva and regards the skeleton with flat hatred.

"Leave my allies out of this, Garius," Tarva says, adjusting her two-handed grip on the scythe. Gann notices there's also a sword hanging at her side, and wonders why.

The skeleton chuckles. "You protect them so valiantly. Even after you've seen the fractures in your little group, even after your druid stayed in her dying swamp rather than continue with you, even now you've been betrayed."

"Bishop," Casavir growls, and if summoned by his name, the ranger stalks from the shadows. Tarva watches him, and says nothing. 

Gann moves to a better viewpoint; they all seem to be ignoring him, anyway, and from here he can see the sadness, the anger, the regret warring in her eyes. Bishop bows mockingly; without looking at the paladin, Tarva puts out a hand and restrains him. "My debt to you is over, 'Knight Captain' – and the strange thing is, I'm a little sorry about it."

"You owe me nothing. Duncan held that debt, and he called it paid after we rescued Shandra," Tarva says, her soft voice almost pleading with him. "Travelling with me after that was your choice."

"I almost kept going for you, right up 'til the end," he says, his eyes fixed on her as if they are the only two people in the room. Her friends are silent, although there is a murderous light in Casavir's eyes, and the tattooed man is still watching the skeleton. "But your uncle... it's hard to get past that part of it. Even... even with everything else."

"Bishop..." she says, but he's not listening.

"I saw you and the paladin up on the walls that night. I'll admit, you almost had me fooled. Talking about how you understood me, thinking you could manipulate me... to think, I would have died for you." He pulls an arrow from his quiver, nocks it, but does not raise his bow. Not yet. "That's why it's going to end this way... why it has to end this way."

Effortlessly, Garius takes control of the situation again. "So perhaps you're beginning to see. Let's open your eyes a little more. Neeshka –"

The horned woman starts; the dwarf grabs her arm. "Don't listen to him, fiendling!" The skeleton ignores them both, still intent on Tarva.

"Your tiefling companion has some very interesting breeding. Power in the blood... power that I can harness, now that she's been taught to obey." Slowly, unwillingly, Neeshka steps away from the group.

"Neeshka, don't do this, please don't do this," Tarva begs, and Gann finds it hurts him to hear that note in her voice. The tiefling keeps moving away.

"Forgive me, I can't help it..." There is pain written across her face, pain that only ceases when she falls into place beside Garius, beside Bishop. Tarva squares her shoulders, as if to bear a burden laid on them; only those closest to hear can see the tears in her eyes, tears she will not let fall. Garius scans her allies again, dismissing Casavir, the dwarf, the yellow woman. His gaze falls on the elven mage, and he nods, as if to himself.

"Sand."

"Oh, gods, how woefully predictable," the elf drawls. "You intend to test my loyalty?"

"You studied at the Hosttower – and you were driven away before you could even touch the power, the knowledge, you sought there. I can offer you more than the Hosttower ever could. I can lay all the knowledge of ancient Illefarn at your feet. All you need to do... is join me."

"As one of the many Shadow Reavers we have already slain?" Despite his elegant robes, the mage very nearly snorts. "As tempting an offer as that may be, I think not. Besides, the little girl here needs minding."

"Ah, well," Garius says. "You would not have been my first choice, were I looking for arcane power in this little group. All your words of restraint, control... they only serve to mask how little magic you truly wield. Isn't that true... Qara?"

The red-haired girl is grinning. "I really couldn't have said it better myself."

"Are you ready, sorceress, to take up the destiny that has always been yours? To finally learn the meaning of power, your power? To cast off the restrictions that others, less talented, would place upon you?"

"Qara, don't-," Tarva asks, but this time, she knows she's lost.

"Still trying the orders?" Qara scoffs. "What a waste of the little time you've got left to live."

Sand mutters something inaudible; Garius smirks as well as a skull-headed man can be expected to as Qara crosses the floor and stands beside him. "Well, well, isn't the truth an interesting thing? Dear Neeshka, Bishop, Qara – how badly you failed them, Captain." Her head bows slightly, as she accepts his words as truth, despite the protests of those who have remained faithful.

"And I see I've missed one," Garius adds, and the skull face turns, and the eye sockets fix on Gann. He very nearly protests, before he reminds himself to play along; he does not want to shatter the dream before he reaches her, otherwise he'd have to do it all again.

"I doubt there is anything you could offer that would tempt me," Gann answers him. "The undead are hardly known for their pleasant dreams, and they are both terribly ugly and an offence to the nose."

Garius chuckles again. "You are hardly as shallow as you like to appear, Gannayev-of-Dreams, and you cannot hide from me behind your words. The shadows offer many things. The undead are only another form of spirit, you know. One such as you could gain great power, shaman." The skeleton tilts his head to one side, watching for Gann's reaction.

Gann can hear the dwarf ("Come on, hagspawn!") and the yellow-skinned woman ("Know that Garius seeks to sway you.") and he is aware, finally, of Tarva watching him, and of her words, barely more than a breath: "Please, Gann..."

"But it is not power that drives you, is it, dreamwalker?" the Shadow Reaver says. "No. That is not what lies closest to your heart. Let me offer you more. Let me give you the city beneath the waves, answers to the questions that have haunted you all your life, revenge on the parents who fed you to the wilds of Rashemen. The father you never knew, the mother who exiled you... I can put them in your hands."

"I don't think so," Gann says, holding his voice steady with an effort. The realisation that Tarva has been paying that much attention, putting together the scraps of information that he'd given her or let slip, leaves him more than a little shaken. "I prefer it over here," he tells Garius.

"Thank you," Casavir murmurs, for Gann's ears alone.

"Well, if that is everyone's final answers..."Garius shrugs.

Qara raises her hands, Neeshka tenses, Bishop raises his bow.

Tarva reacts, moving faster than Gann's ever seen a person move. It all happens in an instant; Bishop releases an arrow, looking straight at Tarva; she reaches him, her scythe already curving down in a lethal arc; barriers of shimmering light spring up behind her, separating the weapon master from her allies; Bishop's arrow flies true to its intended target...

... and Casavir is the first to die, as it pierces through his eye and penetrates his brain. There is only a moment for Bishop to see the paladin's death and Tarva's tears, before her scythe shears him in half, but the ranger dies with a smile on his face.

Tarva pivots to face her friends through the barrier. "Grobnar, Khelgar, Construct, Zhjaeve! To the left, around the barrier! Sand, Ammon, Gann, go right! Everybody run!" she screams, as the bright light that heralds a summoned creature flashes among them. They scatter, trying to reach her, but barriers fly up on either side, and only the fastest have made it through. Left behind are the gnome, the golem and the mage; Sand wastes no time and starts firing spells through the barrier, and the golem turns to attack the undead creatures that have appeared among them, but the gnome starts a horrible nasal whistling.

As Gann starts casting, focusing his efforts on the two huge bladed golems that are attacking Tarva, he's dimly aware of the man with glowing tattoos doing the same, of the yellow woman turning her magic on Garius, of the dwarf fighting and pleading with Neeshka, of Qara and Sand locked in a mages' duel. After that, it's all fragmented. Tarva goes down. The yellow woman heals her. The stench of charred flesh, but he doesn't know whose. The golem shatters the barrier. He runs out of spells, and takes Bishop's bow and quiver without hesitation. The dwarf cries out as Neeshka dies. Demonic laughter from the tattooed man.

Finally, there is peace. Those who stood with Garius are dead; those who did not are being patched up by the yellow woman, including Gann. He hadn't even noticed being injured. Tarva is standing, looking down at Casavir's body. There is absolutely no expression on her face at all.


	9. The King of Shadows

The portal opens before them; not the rainbow, misty one Gann expects, or not quite; the vibrant colours are dulled and muddy, tendrils of darkness writhe amongst the colours. He is reluctant to walk through, and turns to look about him. The strange group have been talking to each other, sharing sympathy and determination, but now they all turn to look at him.

"Well, that was a fight," the dwarf says lightly, although he's still half-turned towards the fallen tiefling. "I'm thinkin' we got a bigger one coming, though."

"You know, that reminds me of the time I met a skinny half-orc, and she said-" the gnome starts to burble, until the golem clanks, and he turns his attention to patting and soothing it.

"Know that this path is for you alone, shaman," the yellow woman says. "You must reach the Kalach-Cha in time!"

"We are all impressed by your unrivalled grasp of the obvious," the mage says to her, and rolls his eyes. "Even Grobnar knows that, and I'm certain Gann is as insulted as I would be to classed with the gnome."

The tattooed man scratches his red beard. "While I hate to echo the gith, she has a point. Time may indeed be of the essence. Go on, hagspawn."

The dream-Tarva says nothing; she hasn't even looked up.

"Remember us," Sand says, and the others echo him as Gann steps through the portal...

... into the same place he has just left, but here she is, finally, so many layers deep. He can see her, alone, wounded, bleeding, her scythe replaced by a strange, glowing sword, surrounded by a tide of darkness. Tears have left their traces down her face, and her breath comes in harsh, painful sobs, but she still fights, her sword sweeping out, cutting through the darkness. It seems to make no difference.

He calls her name, but in the contrary way of dreams, she doesn't hear. Nothing for, it, then; he steps forward, into the darkness, and instantly loses all sense of direction or perspective. There is only black, cold shadow, seeping into him, making it difficult to feel even his hands, each breath in his lungs colder than ice, than death... and the shadows whisper to him. Voices of people he'd known, others that were not human at all, or even sane, temptations and threats, they whisper inside his head until he shakes it violently to try and shut them up. 

They continue.

"Tarva!" he calls again, or tries to; he can feel the brief warmth of his breath leave his mouth, but the darkness swallows it up before it even reaches his ears. No wonder they couldn't wake her from this; if some of her dreams were impressive, Gann is genuinely frightened by her ability to construct a nightmare – or maybe it's mostly a duplicated memory, he thinks, and that is even worse. Time passes strangely in dreams, but she's been facing this all the time he's been tracking her through her dream – how long? he wonders. How long has she been facing this alone?

The darkness presses closer. There is a slash of bitter cold, followed by agonising pain; Gann shrieks or yells, or something, soundlessly, before he gets his brain into gear and somehow casts a healing spell, regardless of the fact that he cannot hear his own voice, and his fingers are stiff with cold and difficult to move. The wound seals, as the light of the spell blossoms briefly about him. The flare of light shows him the shapes in the shadow, and that they backed off for a moment, that Tarva is not very far away, and that she saw his spell, and there's something like hope on her face.

The shadows press the attack now, more viciously, but Gann lifts his hands and chants (or, at least, he thinks he does) the words of a Sunburst spell; the explosion of light and warmth that follows strongly suggests that it works. For a moment, the area about them is clear as the shadows are driven back; Tarva sprints to him – no time for words, but he can see that she recognises him, if nothing more - and puts her back to his. She flails out with the sword again; Gann can dimly feel her movement, and the slightest of warmth radiating from her as he starts to cast again.

It seems to take forever. The dark and the cold, the silence, the attacks, the pain. Three times more he calls the sun to them, interspersed with bits and pieces of healing; at one point Tarva almost hits him, having gotten turned around in the utter disorientation of the darkness, before his spell gives her light and she pulls the blow with a wrenching effort.

Just as well, Gann somehow finds time to think. She could have killed him.

One last Sunburst, that's all he has, but it is finally enough; the shadows retreat...

... and then they coalesce into one terrifying shadow-form that towers above them. It's something like a man, something like a demon, projecting cold, passionless malice, destruction, dissolution. Its cold eyes study them both as Tarva spins around to face it at his side, looks up, straightens herself, squares her shoulders, and nods, as if to herself. 

"Tarva," Gann says, knowing that look, that determination. The words pour from him without volition, unmeasured, uncharacteristic, "Listen to me. This is just a dream. We are in Ashenwood, you are dreaming, and I came to find you. You must wake up."

Something flickers over her weary, tear-stained face as she looks at him, then it disappears. It's not quite her neutral expression returning, but it's close. "Gann? What are you doing here- a dream? Then how - Really?" The place flickers slightly as the words tumble over each other, as she considers this, as she believes him, but the huge thing the darkness has become speaks.

"It is you. I know why you have come... again," it says, the hollow, deep voice setting the walls trembling. "The darkness in your soul has drawn you here, to become one with the Shadow Weave through me."

"I will not listen to you, King of Shadows," Tarva says, her voice shaking. "As I did then, so do I now –" and she darts forward, one frail woman with a glowing silver sword against the massive thing she calls the King of Shadows. 

It's so insane that it takes Gann an instant to realise that she's doing it, and to shout, "No, don't – wake up!" as he runs towards her, to shake her out of it or something. He runs and runs, and gets nowhere, as he's heard people say sometimes happens in dreams, but it's an alien sensation – Gann the dreamwalker, held against his will in another's dream? It takes him precious seconds to break free, and he doesn't even reach her before she stops dead, and the shadowy spirit-eater bursts from her. Its tentacles reach for the King of Shadows, and he flinches away from them. It looks absurd; the demonic mass of shadows afraid of the small half-elf and the wavering half-real form at her back, but the cord Gann remembers so well starts to stretch between them. She's fighting, trying to rein in the hunger, but it's stronger now. "No!" he shouts to her, unwilling to stand by as he did when they faced Okku, knowing, somehow, that she cannot afford to surrender here, in her dream. That if she does, she will be lost.

She's shuddering, jaw clenched, agony written in every line of her, as she struggles to cage the hunger, as the cord grows thicker despite her will, and the King of Shadows falls to his knees. He grabs at her hand, trying to anchor her, support her somehow, and is unprepared for the fierceness and strength of her returning grip. She is crushing his hand as her eyes close and she mutters small fragments of words – curses, prayers – her entire body shaking with the effort, with the pain. He murmurs fierce encouragement to her, telling her to fight, telling her of her strength, of her will, and he sees she's starting to win.

The spirit-eater howls its defiance, and redoubles its efforts; Tarva's hand tightens on his, and he's almost sure he can hear his bones creak; the King of Shadows reaches one immense, taloned hand out to them –

\- then the cord snaps and the spirit-eater disappears. Tarva releases his hand, and would have proceeded to fall to the ground if Gann hadn't caught her. His arms close about her instinctively, and for one moment, she is there, a real, warm, solid presence against him. He has had more women in his arms than he can easily remember (although usually they're wearing a lot less than full plate armour), but something about it (about her?) now almost astonishes him, stuns him so that he almost protests when she regains enough balance, enough strength, to stand upright and disentangle herself.

"Unexpected," the King of Shadows says. "I do not think you will see me again." The massive form flares into blinding silver light, and when they can see again, he is gone.

"Come now," Gann says, having recovered enough (and tucked that moment away, to think about later) to reassume his customary tone of voice. "It really is time for you to wake. Kaelyn is worrying."

Tarva takes a couple of deep breaths. "Just a dream," she says. It's not quite a question, not quite a statement. "Why are you here?"

"Perhaps you should be asking yourself why you dream of me," he replies, keeping his expression as neutral as hers for a moment, watching for a reaction.

"I am no sheltered farmgirl," Tarva says, regarding him steadily, "I am not Anya, to create a Sir Gannayev to come to my rescue. I know you can walk in dreams."

Gann chuckles. "Very well done. Dream-walking is a gift of my hag blood, although there are other ways to acquire it, and that is one of the many things we shall have to talk about later. As I told you, you were very deep in nightmare – and an impressive one, at that – and Kaelyn could not wake you. So she rousted me from my nice dream, and sent me in to find you."

"I see," she says. "There are definitely many things we shall have to talk about later. For now, how do I wake up?"

"Simply want it," he answers, and she nods. She closes her eyes, the better to concentrate, and he can see her form start to fade as she begins to wake.

Her eyes flicker open for a moment. "Gann?" she says. "Thank you."

Gann watches her disappear. He half expects to see at least one of the dream-figures reappear, before the dreamscape fractures with the waking of the dreamer, but there is nothing left, except the lingering memory of holding her.


	10. Jarl

It had been deep night when he entered her dream; Gann opened his eyes to see only the dying embers of the fire, and the false dawn lightening the sky. Clearly Tarva hadn't wasted any time after waking; she was up and already strapping on her armour. Irritating habit, that. Kaelyn and Safiya were both talking to her softly. Much to the frustration of his curiosity, he couldn't hear a thing clearly. Never mind.

Tarva caught his slight movement. "Ready for another exciting day of tramping through the woods?" Her words were light, but there was a slight edge of uncertainty in her eyes as she looked at him. Gann could interpret that easily; she wanted to know what else he'd seen in her dream. He threw her his best enigmatic half-smile.

"Snow, trees, spirits – sounds enthralling." He'd noticed the slight hardening of her features at the word 'spirits'. She was fighting the spirit-eater at every turn, and it had been days since she'd done anything but wrestle the hunger down.

"I realise that this is not as interesting as sitting in a prison cell, but perhaps you can restrain your yawns of boredom long enough to, I don't know, cast a few spells, fire a few arrows?"  
"If only to oblige one so beautiful and so cursed, I will try," he said.

"Do that," she said, and spun on her heel, away from him. "We will talk later," she tossed over her shoulder.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Oh, gods," Tarva muttered as they approached the blue, glowing figure of a man, and a variety of telthors materialised around them.

"Steady, little one," Okku rumbled.

She nodded, and swallowed a couple of times, with a very set look on her face.

"Are you all right?" Safiya asked. "I know it's been a while since you... fed."

"I... think so," Tarva said. "Just as long as I don't have to be around them for too long." Despite the fierce cold, Gann noted, sweat was beading on her forehead as visible sign of her struggle to control the spirit-eater's urges.

"Old Father Bear and I could scare them off for you," Gann offered. Okku rumbled at him, but said nothing. It was rather fun to tease the ancient bear god, even if he wasn't sure exactly how far he could safely push it.

"You could wait by the tree," Kaelyn suggested, and glanced back over her shoulder at the tall beech, still in the full glory of its summer foliage. "I do not think there is need to put you to this test."

"Thanks for your concern... but I need to practice this, I think. The more control I can gain, the better."

"As you wish," the half-celestial said, but she exchanged a worried glance with Safiya behind the half-elf's back.

"You all know what to look for by now," Tarva said. "If you see I'm losing control, you have my full permission to spook the spirits, club me over the head and drag me away, whatever you think it will take."

"I'd rather not hit you," Gann said. "I would not like to test my strength against the thickness of your skull. I have a feeling I know which would win, and I might never recover from such deep humiliation."

"Humiliating Gann aside, we have no idea what other effects that would have," Safiya observed. "Since we're relying on your conscious willpower to keep it in check, knocking you out when it's active..."

Tarva blanched. "Good point. Let's not find out, hmmm?"

The little group moved forward cautiously. About half of the spirits they met were hostile – no doubt due to the presence of the spirit-eater –these, however, looked like the sort who were friendly, or at least neutral, and this Gann attributed to his presence. He smoothed back his hair as Tarva offered a friendly greeting to the telthor berserker.

He turned to face them, but said nothing.

"Tarva," Kaelyn whispered, having been looking past them, "that isle is full of ice giants."

"I can smell their stench from here," Okku said.

"Aye," said the spirit-berserker, slowly, as if the words had to come a long way. "It used to be a sanctuary, protected by a spirit. A barrier nothing evil could cross. Then the hungry one came and destroyed it."

"The hungry one," Tarva repeated flatly. "You know, the more I hear about this curse, and those who suffered it – or worse, revelled in it – before me, the less I like it?" The telthor didn't respond, but Okku growled his agreement. "And that let the frost giants in?" she asked after a moment.

"Aye," the berserker said. "Without a guardian spirit, the sanctuary is vulnerable to such invasion. The giants must be driven forth."

"Clear out the frost giants? That's all?" Tarva asked.

"Because an entire clan of bloodthirsty overgrown snowmen is, of course, nothing to worry about," Safiya muttered, and Gann chuckled.

"And a new spirit must be found to guard the sanctuary and re-form the barrier," the telthor said in his echoing voice.

"Would you take on that responsibility? Would you make that sacrifice?" Tarva asked, and Gann finally caught up. He wasn't sure he liked the idea at all...

... but the telthor had no hesitations. "It is my duty. And if you can grant that – hungry one – then you will have undone at least part of the damage that you inflicted on the forest the last time you came here."

Gann could see the decision in the set of her shoulders – if nothing else, the berserker’s last words had made up her mind for her. She puffed out a breath, which hung like a cloud in the frigid air, and nodded sharply. "Then I'll be back."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"You still have the challenge system?" Tarva asked.

Gann laughed, and Safiya was grinning. Easy enough to figure out where Tarva was going with this, and if the five of them couldn't hold off one thick-witted ice giant, he would stand on the stage in the Veil and declare his vows of chastity.

"We still is liking to have a strong jarl, and this is the best way we know to pick him," the giant shrugged.

"And anyone can challenge? How about... me?" There was a mischievous light dancing in Tarva's eyes as she glanced over her shoulder to see Safiya and Okku grinning back. There was even a slight smile on Kaelyn's delicate face. It felt almost like a punch in the stomach to Gann.

There it was – that was how she should have looked, the way she should have been. She should have been that glowing, vital spirit, not the wounded and empty one he'd come to know. Part of it was the spirit-eater curse, no doubt, but there was deeper, older damage there. And, well – he wouldn't say that it broke his heart, because as much as he enjoyed melodrama, that would be too great an exaggeration. It was a waste, that was all.

"Haw, haw," the ice giant laughed. "Little bug wants to be jarl! I is accepting your challenge. You will have to show you can be defending the crown better than me. You stand in front of the crown, and I is trying to take it from you. If you is knocked out, I win. If I is knocked out, I doesn't win."

Tarva slung her scythe down from its resting position on her shoulder. "Got it."

"But since I is still jarl, I can make new rules. In this and all future challenges, you is going to have to protect the crown from all giants of clan, not just me. And you might have to fight some of us twice over, because we is all so excited to beat you up so many times."

Tarva looked around, like the others, assessing the strength of the clan. Coolly appraising, now that a battle was imminent, and again, Gann felt it as a loss. "We can do that."

"And one more rule," the jarl said. "No cheaters with their sparkly lights."

"I'm sorry?" Tarva asked.

"He said 'no spell-casters'," Safiya translated.

"I didn't follow that at all," Gann admitted. "How did you?"

"Spent too much time with Kaji."

"So Gann and Safiya can't fight with me?" Tarva asked the jarl.

"And the bird-woman can't too."

"He won't allow Kaelyn either," Safiya explained. The cleric sighed in something very like exasperation.

Tarva reached up to slap Okku's shoulder. "Well, Old Father Bear? Want to help me become jarl of a clan of frost giants?"

"You lead a very strange life, little one." The bear's teeth flashed, white and sharp. "But I will enjoy this."

The weapon master turned to face the three spell-casters. Gann didn't think any of them looked particularly pleased about it. "Why don't you wait near the berserker we talked to earlier?" she suggested. "Best not stay too near, I get the impression they're likely to get enthusiastic about beating up people our height."

"The giants are strong, and their numbers are many... you may need my healing," Kaelyn protested softly.

"Kaelyn... I'll be fine," Tarva said. "I thank you for your concern, nevertheless."

"As you wish," the cleric said, her wings fanning out slightly. "I shall pray for you all the same."

The Red Wizard's eyes searched Tarva's face. "You are certain about this?"

"Challenging an entire clan of frost giants with nothing but a garish bear as support, she means," Gann said lightly. "Just in case you'd forgotten already."

Okku growled a little – something about trying his patience, but Tarva talked over the low sound. "Between the two of us, I can think we can handle it, and there's enough of you to deal with anything that might come at you from that direction. If I'm wrong, just yell, and Okku will come and give you a hand – or a paw."

"Hmph. I swore to protect you, spirit-eater, not the one of Thay, the priestess, or the chattering hagspawn. But I will do this."

"Thank you," Tarva said. She sighed and squared her shoulders. "Right."


	11. Again Jarl

Gann could feel her eyes on them as they withdrew from the isle.

"She takes much on herself," Kaelyn commented. He wouldn't have been able to picture it if he hadn't seen it, but the peaceful cleric was fidgeting, fussing with the feathers of her wings. She didn't even seem aware she was doing it; she was watching the frost giants congregate on one side of the little island, while Tarva and Okku stood at the other, the jarl's icy crown resting on the ground behind them.

"Yes," Safiya said, but the simple monosyllable was weighted with concern. "I remember when we got out of Okku's barrow... she'd been paralysed, eviscerated, separated from her friends, brought hundreds of miles from her home, attacked by spirits, rescued by a Red Wizard-"

"A terrifying experience, to be sure," Gann murmured absently. Most of his attention was focused on Tarva. He hadn't really seen her fight before – practicing, certainly, but that didn't count, and since they'd been travelling together, if she'd been fighting, so had he. Now, though...

"Ha," Safiya said. "I know we haven't the best of reputations – and so did she. But she was so unfazed by it all, accepted it so matter-of-factly. She must have been in some pain, worried about her friends... but you would never have guessed it."

... each movement flowed smoothly into the next, her scythe never stilled, spinning and curving in the air. It was almost a dance, measured, formal, as she fought to defeat the ice giants without inflicting serious injury. Okku's snarls and roars reached his ears, but Tarva was silent, quick-footed, her armour shining in the sun, as one by one, the giants fell or admitted defeat to the girl and the bear.

"A spirit-eater," Kaelyn said. "But her heart is good, and her will is strong."

Gann was no expert, but he thought he could see a little of why the scythe was her weapon, how a small, lean woman could wield such a heavy, awkward blade to such good effect. She simply did not have the bulk to put behind a good sword-stroke; once the scythe was in motion, however, its weight and momentum did most of the work for her, and she simply guided it. More than that, its reach kept her opponents safely away from her. Only once or twice did a giant successfully press past her guard, and then she brought up the butt of the weapon like a quarterstaff, or Okku took care of the matter.

She was graceful, she was efficient, and if she'd chosen it, she would have been lethal.

Finally, the jarl came to claim his crown. Brave giant, Gann thought. He wouldn't care to be the one approaching a determined weapon master backed by a bear god.

"Gann! Gann, are you all right?" Safiya asked. "You haven't said anything in a solid five minutes. That's not like you."

"They say absence makes the heart grow fonder; how are you to properly appreciate the sound of my voice if you are never deprived of it?" he answered. "Besides, I would not wish to distract you from the sight of our lovely leader becoming the leader of a clan of frost giants."

Safiya raised her eyebrows, wrinkling the delicate patterns of her facial tattoos, but instead of the comment she had obviously been about to make, she merely smirked. "How considerate of you."

"Consideration is but one of my many virtues," he replied, as Tarva's scythe flashed and she tumbled away from the jarl.

And she fell.

"Oh, no," Safiya breathed.

Couldn't trust an ice giant to know his strength, to know what would knock her out and what would crush her. Gann sprang forward instinctively, reaching for his bow, but Kaelyn's calm voice stopped him. "No. We agreed. If they hurt her, or... or worse - I can call her back. But we will not interfere now."

Okku roared, a furious challenge, but he wasn't going to be close enough to help her before the giant's foot came down hard...

... onto the up-turned, wickedly sharp blade of the scythe.

"Little bug _stung_ me!" the jarl shrieked as Tarva rolled away. Even from this distance, Gann could hear her laugh at the sight of the frost giant – more than two times her height – hopping around on one foot, and clutching the other in both his hands. She flashed a look at Okku, who bared his teeth for a moment, then set them, very firmly, in the jarl's other ankle.

There was a confused moment in which the jarl tried to take his other foot off the ground and came crashing down, both Okku and Tarva springing out of the way just in time. She swung the scythe to within an inch of the giant's eye and held it there. 

"Do you yield?" 

"Yes..." the jarl said slowly. "Little bug is jarl now. I is ashamed." 

Safiya nodded, and the spell-casters hurried back to the island. 

Tarva was grinning so widely Gann was a little surprised the top of her head didn't fall off. It looked remarkably stupid. And wonderful. "As jarl," she said, picking up the icy crown, and turning it over in her hands, "I revoke the challenge system. Whoever... oh, grows the tallest sunflower shall be jarl." The former jarl growled his disgust as Tarva swung back her scythe and let him get up. "Oh, but since I became jarl under the old system, where a failed challenger is exiled, and you all challenged me – well, I guess you'd all better get going. I suggest back to the mountains, and re-challenge Didrik under the new system." 

"Tarva," Safiya said quietly – not too quietly for Gann-of-Dreams to overhear - "you do know that Rashemen is far too cold to grow sunflowers?" 

"Of course," she murmured in return. "But I imagine it'll take them a few years to work that out." 

-0-0-0-0-0- 

The island empty, they went back to the telthor berserker. 

"Your sanctuary is cleared," Tarva told him. 

"Our leader states the obvious," Gann said. "Those giants walked right past you." 

"And in pointing that out, you have also stated the obvious, Gann," Safiya said, her eyes dancing. 

"Shut up," Tarva hissed over her shoulder. She turned back to the spirit, and asked him if he'd changed his mind. He hadn't. 

Gann saw the change pass over her face – utterly serious, completely blank. "Okku, get away. Gann, perhaps you'd better as well." It took him a moment to understand – she'd never deliberately summoned the Hunger before, and she feared the consequences if those two, the spirit and the man touched by them, were too close to her when she did. Gann nodded, without a rejoinder for once, and he and the bear retreated to what seemed a safe distance. 

He still felt the Hunger rise, the fiercer for its starvation, still heard the scream she tried to choke back as the dark thing burst through her flesh and spread its arms wide. It was over quickly, when she didn't fight it; the glowing blue of the telthor sucked into the darkness of the spirit-eater, Tarva stood straight again, her breath ragged, and Safiya picked up the small, glowing gem that retained the essence of the berserker, and handed it to the weapon master. 

"Are you all right?" Kaelyn asked, her soft voice hanging on the still air. 

"Define 'all right'," Tarva said tonelessly, and walked back to the sanctuary without waiting to see if anyone was following. 

They all were, of course; Okku and Gann a little behind the women as Tarva let the spirit essence fall into the dryad well. A shimmering blue energy barrier sprung up to enclose the island. Something of the strain on Tarva's face eased. 

A whisper from the spirit world. "He thanks you," Gann said quietly. 

She turned away from them; even from behind her, Gann could tell she buried her face in her hands and took a couple of deep, shaky breaths. Kaelyn and Safiya looked at each other, with near-identical expressions of concern. It was only a moment, and she straightened her shoulders, her head came up, and she turned back to them. 

"Let's go." 


	12. Again Daeghun

They ranged far through the woods that day. They fought trolls, diseased treants and shambling mounds of living earth; encountered the massive, dying Gnarlthorn, who begged their mercy and told them to invoke Chauntea to cure the blight; defended the berserker and his injured friend from the Malarite who hunted them, and finally, as the shadows lengthened, they found a place to set up camp.

"Gann," the half-elf said, appearing before him once they were set up in the lee of some rocks. "Time to talk." She nodded to Kaelyn and Safiya, and Gann let her lead him a little distance from the camp – not out of sight, but out of earshot. She sat down on a fallen log; the shaman joined her.

"Sunset, shadows, some measure of solitude," Gann said lightly. "I am surprised it took you so long to drag me off into the bushes. However, I am not sure whether yonder chaperones are for the protection of your virtue or mine."

"What shred of virtue you may have left to protect," Tarva muttered. "I want answers, Gann. What you were doing in my dreams, what you saw, what happened."

"Well, I intended to learn your secrets and store them for my own amusement. Unfortunately, I didn't see very many secrets, and they weren't very amusing."

"I suppose I should be grateful for that. What did you see?"

"Quite a few things, actually," he said. "It took a surprisingly long time to reach you. I must say, when you have a nightmare, you do a very thorough job of it." She looked steadily at him. He sighed.

"Very well, then. I shall summarise and spare your blushes."

She looked rather askance at that, but said nothing.

"I encountered two men, who both questioned my presence in your dreams and, to a degree, my intentions. I was able to reassure them on both counts. Later events would suggest that their names were Bishop and Casavir."

"Yes," she said, with the slightest of hoarseness in her voice, surprising him.

"We could discuss this later, if you prefer," Gann offered, which likewise surprised him. He was afire with curiosity to sift the truth of her dreams – the more he had reflected on them during the day, the more certain he had become that they offered a key to understanding the reclusive weapon master. Consequently, he'd been more than happy to tell her what he'd seen, despite the play-reluctance. Offering to put it off - an uncharacteristic impulse, to be sure. Probably just as well she shook her head.

"Go on," she said. Gann noted the small signs – he'd gotten much better at reading them – that indicated she was not finding it easy to maintain the impassive cast of her features.

"There were... hmmm, memories, or perhaps dreamlets," he tried to pick the word that would best describe it to her, who had no experience of dreamwalking, "attached to each of them. You were there in both, as a kind of projection. Quite a feat – I was impressed."

She waved that aside as irrelevant, which, Gann supposed, it was.

"In the first, you were walking down a stone corridor," he said, and saw the recognition flare in her eyes, although she made no move to interrupt. "The man called Bishop came out of the darkness and kissed you. It seemed to... cause you some distress." He sniffed, feeling driven to add a lighter note, and unsure why. "No doubt due to his lamentable lack of technique."

"No doubt," Tarva said tonelessly. "It had nothing to do with the fact he was a treacherous piece of scum. Spare me the peer review, Gann, and keep going."

"Just a moment," Gann protested. "I refuse to be called the peer of a treacherous piece of scum – and an inferior kisser to boot."

"A poor choice of words," she conceded, "and I apologise. You've been a good companion."

"Ah, and so you leave the matter of my kissing skills in tactful silence." Gann sighed dramatically, hoping she'd take the bait, knowing that no matter how hard she was thinking about something, she would still automatically riposte. Sometimes she left herself wide open.

There was the slightest curve at one corner of her mouth. "I could hardly be a fair judge."

Perfect. "Is that a problem? I'm sure something could be arranged."

"Yes, I could interview all the farmers' daughters in Rashemen," she said. And just like that, her face was empty and neutral once more. Clearly a misstep on his part, Gann noted. Or else she'd been a step ahead of him all along. "Get back on topic, Gann."

It took a moment to remember. "Ah, Bishop."

"Yes."

"After he had finished demonstrating how not to kiss a woman, he slunk back into the shadows."

"Yes," she repeated. "Yes, it happened very like that." She was very still, her hands propping up her chin, elbows resting on her thighs, not looking at him.

Gann hid his surprise – somehow, he'd not expected her to say much about what he'd seen, let alone give him answers. "And a voice spoke to you out of the darkness, and said some rather unflattering things about men and their intentions. I gather that part was dream rather than memory?"

"Describe the voice," she said.

"Male, low," Gann said. "Slightly nasal, very intense. Oh, it belonged to a man with brown hair, green eyes, and ears much more sharply pointed than your own."

That caught her attention. Her head came up, and her eyes, flat and empty, fixed on his. "You saw him." Her voice betrayed her; this man was far more important than the others.

"Not at that point, but later. Next came Casavir." Gann cocked his head, waiting for a reaction. She turned her gaze away.

"Go on."

"Night again, atop stone walls. You'd come from battle, I think," Gann said.

"Ah," Tarva said. "The night before the battle. When he said...?"

"That he loved you, yes," Gann answered, his voice very level, and saw the small flicker in her face. Very interesting. She'd picked up what he meant immediately and without obvious discomfort – even at the thought of him witnessing what to have been a very private memory, regardless of how coolly she'd reacted to the paladin's words of love. Nevertheless, she didn't want to repeat them, and she hadn't liked hearing Gann say that, either. There was a sore spot there. He went on. "He saw the marks on your wrists, you forbade him to go after Bishop, and you –"

"Yes," she said. "That, too, was memory." The half-elf picked up a stick, poked at the ground.

"And then your foster father spoke up again, and said something equally scathing," Gann said, and was not surprised to see Tarva's eyes spring back to him. They were expressionless... but he found himself suddenly very glad she did not have a weapon at hand.

"Don't play games with me, hagspawn!" She spat the last word out like an insult. Coming from her, who'd addressed him by name since they'd met, it felt like one. Worse still, he wasn't quite sure why she'd reacted that way. "How much do you know? What did my father say to you?"

"Ah... several things," he said slowly. Father, she'd said, not foster father. He licked dry lips. 

"After Casavir left-"

"I can guess. I heard that particular lecture many times." Her words came too quickly; they sounded odd on her lips. He saw that her hands were clenched into fists; her knuckles were white. "I don't want to hear it again. What did he say when you met him?"

"I asked him if you'd passed that way," Gann said quietly, choosing each word with care. "He said that the path I'd walked was the one you'd left open. I'm still not sure if that was supposed to be an answer."

"Yes," she said, and stood, turning away from him, her back tense, her hands curling into fists and uncurling as she fought for some form of control. Her voice was rough. "Go on."

Something suggested to him it would be a better idea not to mention that the dream-man he'd met had _insisted_ on calling himself Tarva's foster father, rather than the plain father she called him. "He spoke of a woman called Shayla, and of a promise made to raise you. A promise that he was left to keep when both she and your mother were slain."

A slight sound from Tarva, half-strangled in her throat. "He told you more in five minutes than he told me in twenty years."

"He kept reminding me that he was only an echo of the man who raised you, one shaped by your mind," Gann said. He left the implications – that she'd really been the one been telling him these things, and not her foster father – unspoken.

"He would," she said. The words fell quietly between them, each word layered with more emotion, more meaning, that Gann dared try and guess at. "Go on. Don't keep stopping."


	13. Again Garius

"Your foster father told me of Bishop and Casavir – little more than their names, really. Asked me if I was ready to see their fates once more."

"Once more?" Tarva turned back to face Gann, and he could actually see the effort it took her to maintain her neutral mask trembling in the muscles of her neck. "Explain."

"Ah... I walked into your dreams once before," Gann confessed. A tiny twig held in Tarva's hand snapped as her fingers tightened. The sound was surprisingly loud. "After the Wells of Lurue. Only briefly." She was staring at him, and he found the words flowing quicker. "I saw them lying dead on a floor of stone. I saw the bodies of two women, one a mage, the other bearing horns and a tail. I saw you, as I did last night, fighting alone against a tide of darkness.

"And then your dream changed, and there was suffocation and pressure. Voices upon voices, all around me, screaming. I... I think I was screaming too, as I was drawn in, and my limbs were torn from their sockets –" he took in a deep breath. That had not been easy to say. "That dream... I did not think it originated from you."

"I know that dream," she said quietly. "And I remember dreaming it after the Wells of Lurue. I don't remember seeing you in it."

"No," Gann said. "No, I was there very briefly. A few breaths, no more." This... conversation was getting far too complicated; he wasn't sure he saw all the traps and pitfalls.

"I see," she said. Neutral again, back on subject, turning away from him again."And what else did my father say to you?"

"I tried to press him for answers, which failed dismally," he tried to regain his lighter tone. It sounded wrong, even in his ears. "He asked whether I would fail or betray you."

"And what did you say? No... actually, don't answer that. I don't want to hear it, either way."

"As you wish," Gann said, not sure if he was relieved or insulted. "He said 'we all failed her, betrayed her. You will, too, when the time comes.' He told me to remember, and then he disappeared."

The slightest of sounds from Tarva, nothing he could identify. She still faced away from him. 

There was silence, which, Gann realised, she wasn't going to break. He went on. "I found myself in that room of stone where we met last night. There was a rather assorted group of people with you – I learned some of their names. There was Casavir, and two women I recognised – Neeshka and Qara – a wizard named Sand. There was also a small demented gnome with a big spiky golem, a veiled woman with strange yellow skin, a dwarf, and a red-bearded man with glowing tattoos on his face. You were talking to a large, skull-headed man. You called him-"

"- Black Garius," she whispered. "You saw him. You were there."

"In a manner of speaking," he said. "Then Bishop appeared, said-"

"I know what he said," Tarva said. "He stood with Garius. Like Qara. I failed them. And Elanee." She sounded distant – not so much talking about the events, now, as reliving them, Gann merely a voice retracing her steps with her.

"They betrayed you," Gann said, a little relieved, a little bemused. She didn't seem to be angry at him any longer, which was nice, but she honestly seemed to think it was her fault those companions had stood with Garius. Possibly it had been, but it didn't seem likely, particularly given the reasons they'd given for their betrayal. Nor was he certain who Elanee was.

"If I had been paying more attention to them, if I had been to them all that they needed me to be, they would not have betrayed me. I failed them."

"And Neeshka?"

"Garius cast a geas, tortured her into compliance."

"Ah," Gann said, and left the subject alone. "He also tried to sway Sand, who turned him down. And then he turned his attention to me."

She turned and looked at him. That had surprised her. "That would be dream rather than memory."

"Yes," he said dryly. "I would have remembered a skull-headed man myself. He offered me power, to begin with."

"To begin with? What did he offer you then?" she asked, something shifting beneath her stony expression.

"Can I say that you're clearly very observant and leave it at that?" Gann asked, and for the first time since they'd met, refused to meet her eyes. With some difficulty, he added, "If it hadn't been a dream, and if I had thought he could really deliver what he promised, I might almost have been tempted."

He could feel her eyes searching his face, and saw her nod. "Very well, I won't pry."

Gann let out a slow sigh. He hadn't expected that. After all the private things he'd seen in her dream, she was willing to allow him this secret? "Thank you."

"Go on."

"Well, it's a rare woman who can resist the urge to know more about Gann-of-"

"With the dream," she said, but there was the slightest twitch of her lips.

"Ah. Well. It got messy." Gann looked up at her, and chose his next words carefully. "Bishop slew Casavir, and you killed him." Her face was utterly still again. "You were separated from the rest of your allies; some of them made it to you, and others did not. There was a battle, and those who stood with you survived it." He took a deep breath. "They told me to go on and find you, and to remember them."

She nodded. "And then?"

"I did. You know the rest."

"Yes," Tarva said. "That's really all you saw?"

"In essence." They were silent a moment. "I confess, my curiosity is eating me alive. May I ask a few questions?"

"You just asked one," Tarva said. Her voice was under her control, now. "But you may ask as many as you like. I won't necessarily answer them, of course..."

"Of course," Gann smiled, and sorted through to find a full-grown question among the haze of half-formed queries and doubts and interesting points that still crowded his mind. "I walked into your dream at the Wells of Lurue, and not again, until last night. Why were you open then?"

"I sleep very lightly, now," Tarva said quietly. "Sometimes not at all."

A very simple answer, which also suggested that there should be little difficulty entering her dreams on later occasions – as long as she was actually asleep. Might need to reflect on that a little more, Gann decided; he still wasn't sure whether she'd reacted very well or very badly to him walking in her dreams. For all his considerable experience with women, Tarva was difficult to predict; sometimes it felt as though she was at least three different people. "You could ask Safiya to spell you down, if you're having trouble sleeping," he suggested.

"That's not the problem," she said.

"Ah." Something to do with the spirit-eater, then, and he decided to exercise some tact in moving onto another question. "Your father said that the dream I walked was the one you left open. He implied that you had walked a different way. Had you?"

"Yes," she answered. "Before you ask, I'm not going to tell you about it. I envy the path you walked. I would have liked to see Daeghun."

"Your foster father?"

"Yes..." she sighed. "I don't even know if he survived. I think... I hope..." her voice trailed off, as she stared into the distance, her eyes focused on something else entirely.

"He seemed a... difficult man," Gann said quietly.

"That's not a question."

He wasn't sure what he'd even been trying to ask. He let the matter drop. "The King of Shadows – was that part dream or memory?"

She was utterly motionless, save for stray wisps of her hair, blown by the wind. "Memory," Tarva said. "Almost entirely."

There was more he wanted to ask – what had happened to her companions? Had she really fought that creature of darkness alone? What had happened to bring them there? What had happened afterwards? In what way had Casavir or Daeghun failed her or betrayed her? Why had the spirit-eater tried to devour the King of Shadows? - but judging from the way her face had set, none of those questions, or ones like them, would be welcomed. "Have you heard of the Dreamer's Eye?" Gann asked instead.

"Never," she said, and he noted the slightest relaxation of her shoulders. He'd read her correctly, then.

"We've been travelling together for a while now," he began to explain, "and when those touched by the spirits –like me - are open to others – like you – it can cause the inner eye, the Dreamer's Eye, to open."

"And?"

"You will notice you see many things... clearer than before. You may find yourself finishing others' sentences or shaping their incomplete thoughts. Your dreams will be stronger, more detailed – you may even gain a greater degree of control over them. A little like me – "

"In other words," Tarva interrupted, "you're contagious."

He laughed softly. "An unflattering comparison. I would prefer to think of it as having a good influence on you."

"Of course you would." She looked across to where Kaelyn and Safiya had finished setting up the camp. Okku had lumbered off into the trees, probably to go hunting; Safiya was holding a struggling Kaji by the foot. It seemed the little homunculus had developed a fascination with Kaelyn's feathered wings. 

"Gann..." she hesitated, almost visibly searching for what she wanted to say. "I ... am glad you intervened last night. I am deeply in your debt, and I have no right to ask this – but what you saw –"

He looked away from her, genuinely hurt. "Do you really think so little of me, that I would carelessly betray your dreams?"

"I...no. No." Her voice was slightly unsteady. "I'm sorry. But... I needed to ask. Gann, please, would you mind leaving me alone for a while?"

He looked at her; remembered, again, who and what she was; what she had been through. What she still might have to face. He masked his reluctance with a gentle, "As you wish," and stood, padded away from her, towards the warmth of the fire.

Leaving her there, with her thoughts and memories, alone in the darkness.


	14. Safiya

Safiya looked up from her spellbook as he returned to the little campfire. "What was all that about?"

"Our fair leader merely wished to know what I'd seen in her dreams," Gann said. "A perfectly natural curiosity that I was happy to satisfy."

"I see," the wizard said, although judging by the way she was studying him, she wasn't sure whether it was as simple as that or not.

"I am glad that you assisted her," Kaelyn said. "You did Ilmater's work where I could not."

Gann suppressed the derisive retort that automatically rose to his mind. There was no use wasting it on Kaelyn – as Safiya said, tell the cleric that her faith would feed her, and she'd happily starve with a prayer on her lips.

"Seriously, Gann," Safiya said as he sat down near the fire and started to pull at his pack. "She said that you'd brought her out of nightmare, but nothing else. What happened?"

They both glanced over at the still figure of the half-elf, sitting on a log, her back to them.  
"I never tell that kind of detail," he said with a lazy smile.

"Of course not. Next question: what's going on between you and her?"

He parried the question automatically. "Why do you ask?"

Safiya gave him a withering look. "Because I want to know, naturally. Really, Gann, that was clumsy of you."

She had a point. If he hadn't been somewhat weary of that particular question – Bishop, Casavir and Daeghun (which really just meant Tarva) had all asked him something along those lines last night - he would have come up with a much better retort. "What makes you think that there's anything going on?" he asked, and then wondered exactly why he was dodging the question so hard. For sheer sport, perhaps.

"You haven't exactly been subtle about it," she added. "I was raised in a Red Wizard academy, if you care to recall. I can smell someone trying to gather influence or making a power play from a mile away. Wouldn't have survived if I didn't." She frowned slightly. "Not that I didn't commits some... errors of judgement."

"Such as Khai Kumun?" Gann seized the opening. "You mentioned something about him ambushing you at the Veil."

"Well, yes," Safiya admitted. "But I learnt a lot from that incident. He was... kind to the Headmistress's daughter, not interested in me. I can tell the difference now – and you're clearly interested in Tarva. Nice try at changing the subject, by the way."

"I have no wish to see a spirit-eater let loose on the world," Gann said. "I have spent many years practicing shamanism, and I would hate to be put out of business. I would probably have to start all over again, with nothing but my charm, wit, and rugged good looks to aid me."

"I was asking about Tarva, not the spirit-eater," Safiya said, tilting her head to one side. "You're going to quite some lengths to avoid answering the question, Gann."

"How nice of you to notice," he said, and followed it with his most charming smile.

She merely narrowed her eyes. "Very well. Let me ask you to think about the little group we're travelling with. There's me, a Red Wizard, with a familiar who can pick locks. You can't help with either of those things. Both Okku and Tarva are much stronger fighters than you. Kaelyn is stronger with the divine spells. In other words, you help, but you're not necessary here. Not as I understand the term."

"And where, precisely, are you going with this most depressing and inaccurate description of matters?"

Safiya smiled like a shark – or a Red Wizard. "I have a certain inclination towards practicality and cutting free useless weight. It comes with the facial tattoos and red robes. I can usually keep it under control. But I can't make any guarantees I could if I were distracted... say, by Tarva getting hurt."

Gann stared at her a moment, and then he burst into laughter.

"Forgive me," he said, once he'd gotten himself under control again. "You've a deft touch for melodrama, and I've heard enough threats of the 'stay away from my daughter' variety to judge. But when I consider that a Red Wizard of Thay is delivering them, and referring to a friendly spirit-eater, it seems rather ludicrous."

Safiya grinned. "You have a point – and you are the expert on the subject. I've never tried to deliver one before. How did I do?"

"Not too bad, for an amateur. You were a little light on the colourful threats of painful and unusual bodily harm, but other than that... The whole 'you're not really necessary' was a little harsh."

Safiya considered that a moment. "Probably."

"At the very least, I am a native of Rashemen and a guide."

"Yes, and so is Okku."

"I am also the only one who can attack from a distance without the use of magic," Gann pointed out.

"Granted, but only under highly specific circumstances would that be necessary."

"And by far the most beautiful member of this little group."

"Nobody finds that remotely relevant except you."

"Ah, but you still admit it."

Safiya sighed. "Now you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. I apologise for pushing you that far, and for implying you were useless. However, as far as the 'don't hurt Tarva' goes, I am entirely in earnest."

"I know," Gann said. "And should I do so, you have my full permission to Disintegrate me, by yonder inattentive cleric."

"I don't think somebody who isn't paying attention counts as a witness, Gann."

"How careless of me." He reached out and tapped Kaelyn's shoulder. She jumped, called back from whatever she'd been concentrating on – probably her prayers, Gann thought. "Kaelyn, I just told Safiya she could Disintegrate me if I hurt Tarva and named you witness."

"I... see. But why would you hurt Tarva? You have always seemed reasonably accurate with both your spells and your arrows, and I do not think you bear her any malice."

Safiya and Gann exchanged looks. "Never mind."

Nearly an hour passed before Tarva rejoined them and twilight had passed to true darkness. Safiya was fiddling with some water essences in the firelight; Kaelyn had finished her prayers and was starting on weapon and armour maintenance; Gann, who needed neither to memorise his spells nor petition a god for them, was nearly finished with his; Okku had even come back to the fire, slightly bloody around the muzzle. Why Old Father Bear felt the need to eat, and seemed to sleep, Gann had never been sure. Even though he was more tangible than most, he was still a spirit-form. Perhaps he simply enjoyed it. He'd ventured a question on the subject once, but the bear god had only growled in response.

Tarva's neutral mask was firmly in place as she greeted them, took a seat and started attending to her scythe. It remained in place all that evening; she said barely a word to anyone.  
And she did not dream that night.

There were few flickers in her face the next day, however. They didn't appear when Safiya tried to talk to her, or when a Fell Troll club smashed her leg into red jelly encased in foil. Not even when Gann sent some of his most outrageous lines at her, leaving great gaping holes for her to say cutting things in response.

There was something like uncertainty or indecision, and he saw that several times; something that was almost certainly relief, when Kaelyn healed her after the Fell Troll incident; something a little uglier when they met the thing called Shape of Fire, and finally, there was decision, and a return to empty neutrality, as they left the Ashenwood and began the journey to Immil Vale.

It meant long days on the road. Okku by his side, the two who knew Rashemen leading the way. There were, of course, frequent clashes, Gann's wit against Okku's growls. Gann was magnanimous in the face of certain victory, and eventually they formed an uneasy truce. Kaelyn spent hours deep in conversation with Tarva, telling her about the Crusade, if conversation was the correct word, when Tarva remained stony-faced and silent. More entertaining was Safiya trying to teach Kaji to say 'Thaumaturgy'. 

There were stops for rest and food, but never for long; they were all aware of Tarva forcing the pace, except the weapon master herself. Shadows filled the hollows in Tarva's face, as they encountered no spirits and her hunger gnawed at her.

The nights were longer. Kaelyn expanded her discussion of the Wall of the Faithless to the entire group and was disappointed by Gann's scepticism and Okku's indifference. Safiya and Tarva were equally silent on the subject – but something like fear flickered in Safiya's eyes. Gann was surprised Kaelyn couldn't read it. Then again, no telling what the priestess could or could not see with her strange eyes. Tarva took to sitting against Okku's furry bulk, as the strain of the cold told on her. Gann wondered if she was really sleeping at all; there was no way into her dreams. He often caught Safiya watching the half-elf, almost as often as he caught her watching him.

With a Disintegrate spell prepared, he would have bet.


	15. Kalach-Cha

One night by a campfire, somewhere between Immil Vale and Ashenwood, Tarva broke her silence. She spoke to none of them and all of them. "As Gann pointed out to me a while ago, we've been travelling together for a while now. You have all been kind enough to trust me with something of your background." Her words were stiffly formal; it betrayed how difficult it was to voice them. "I think... I owe you mine. If you wish to hear it." Gann hid his surprise by peering at a fraying seam on his leather armour. The offer didn't seem to fit.

"If you wish to share this, I, for one, will gladly give ear to your words," Kaelyn said, her black eyes fixing on Tarva's face.

"If I were not willing to tell you, I would not have offered," Tarva said quietly. Gann wondered if he was the only one who noted the small evasion; wishing to do a thing was not the same as being willing to do it.

"Forgive me, little one," Okku rumbled. "Your past in a distant land holds little interest for me. You are here now, you act with honour, and you wish to end this curse, as I have sworn to - anything else is so much apes' chatter."

Safiya looked as though she was sitting on something very uncomfortable; she was obviously both madly curious and hesitating to say so, in case she gave offence. Gann, who knew his tongue was smooth enough for _any_ occasion, took pity on her and answered for both of them, without a trace of sarcasm. "We would be honoured." Okku nodded, as if to himself – a surprisingly human gesture from the big bear – put his head down on his paws, closed his eyes.

Tarva took a deep breath. "I warn you in advance, it is not a short tale, and I am no bard. I can put the happenings in order for you, but I cannot tell it in pretty words."

Gann chuckled. "Simply begin the tale with 'once upon a time', and I think that would be close enough."

"Very well, then," Tarva said, staring into the depths of the fire, still mechanically sharpening her weapon. "Once upon a time..."

_... there had been an empire of elves and dwarves, known as the Illefarn. They had feared the rival Netheril Empire, and so one of their best had offered himself as a sacrifice. In a ritual of unimaginable power, he had been united with the Weave; the source of magic had burnt all of the man away and reshaped what remained into a uniquely powerful, passionless, thinking construct, with one purpose only: to protect Illefarn against her enemies._

_And then the mage Karsus had slain the goddess of magic, and all magic failed for the instant of her death. The Illefarn Guardian could not leave his empire unprotected for even that instant, and so he had turned to the corruption of the Shadow Weave, and became the King of Shadows. The Illefarn feared what their protector had become, and sought to destroy him. After several disastrous attempts, the Illefarn Empire crumbled, but they had partly performed the Ritual of Purification, and thus succeeded in banishing him – I think to the Plane of Shadows.  
It was not enough. Over centuries, he eroded the bindings, and finally he found a way to return._

Safiya opened her mouth to ask something, her eyes alight; Gann shook his head at her. There would be time for her to satisfy her intellectual curiosity later. If interrupted, though, he wasn't sure Tarva would easily resume the story.

_West Harbour was a tiny village near a swamp known as the Mere of Dead Men,_ Tarva told them. _The Mere contains many Illefarn ruins. In West Harbour, some twenty-odd years ago, an elven ranger named Daeghun lived with his wife Shayla. Duncan's half-brother visited sometimes; their friend, Esmerelle, visited often. One day she returned heavily pregnant. She asked that Shayla take care of the baby, should anything happen to her; Shayla, who had never been able to bear Daeghun a child, agreed._

_The King of Shadows rose, and an army of undead formed about him. He was met at West Harbour by a warlock named Ammon Jerro, who commanded both tanar'ri and baatezu, and wielded the Silver Sword of Gith herself._

Safiya nearly choked on her effort not to interrupt; Kaelyn looked equally fascinated at the mention of this 'Silver Sword of Gith'. It meant absolutely nothing to Gann – but 'silver sword' was fairly self-explanatory and it was obviously important.

"I never heard much of that battle," Tarva said quietly...

_... but it near destroyed the village. At its end, Jerro raised the Sword of Gith against the King of Shadows, and sent him back into exile. It scarred the ground. Jerro disappeared. The Sword shattered into fragments. Shards._

_Daeghun, who knew the Mere well, had led the townsfolk into hiding. It was only after they were safe that he realised that Shayla, Esmerelle and her infant daughter, who she'd named Tarva, were not among them._

Safiya and Kaelyn exchanged glances as the first of the connections became clear to them. Tarva kept talking, the words slow and steady, uninflected, as though she was reciting ancient history. "He was terrified..."

_... he fled back to the village, and there he found them._

_One of the shards had ripped entirely through Esmerelle; the child, clasped to her breast, was covered in blood. He thought that none of them had survived... and then he heard the baby cry. He pried the infant from Esmerelle's arms, and saw the deep wound in her chest. The shard which had taken the mother's life had embedded itself next to the daughter's heart. He was not skilled enough in healing, and dared not remove it, but neither could he wait for the town's priest to return from the Mere. He had only a trace of magic – but it was enough to seal the wound, the shard trapped inside it. He held the child tight, and he resumed his search._

_He found Shayla not long afterwards. Another of the flying shards had claimed her life. He knelt, pulled the sliver of metal free of her forehead, and closed her eyes._

_And that was how the townsfolk found him, hours later, when they trickled back from the Mere. Bloody, silent, dry-eyed and grim-faced, kneeling beside his wife, holding her hand, the child pressed to his chest, the blood-stained shard lying on the ground between them._

Tarva closed her eyes for a moment, the first sign of any emotion she'd betrayed since beginning her tale. "Harbourmen are a stubborn lot, and West Harbour was rebuilt. Daeghun stayed. He hid the shard in some Illefarn ruins not far from the town..."

_... he did not wish to simply be rid of it, but neither could he bear to have such a reminder of that night close to him. He was cursed with a far more powerful one, though; Esmerelle's daughter, whom he raised alone, for the sake of Shayla's promise. Years passed. He taught her what he could as she grew, but she showed no aptitude for his own profession. Eventually she joined the village militia._

Something like irony showed for a moment at a corner of Tarva's mouth. "I should say, I joined the village militia- and I like to think I did well. It was probably a combination of militia training and farm work that led to me taking up a scythe as a weapon, but that's hardly relevant. I should also mention that I learned of all of this much later; at the time I knew nothing.

"And then one night, West Harbour was attacked by githyanki. Powerful planars, who sought the Sword of Gith, but could not find it. Many were slain that night, but eventually the githyanki simply left. Daeghun reasoned – correctly – that they sought the shards and he knew there were two in the area; the one he hid in the ruins and the one in my chest. So he sent me to the ruins to collect that shard, and then to Neverwinter, a city many days' travel to the north. It took rather longer than that, owing to various difficulties on the roads, including lizardmen and more githyanki. I also met with a dwarf named Khelgar Ironfist, a tiefling rogue named Neeshka, and an elven druid called Elanee, who all chose to travel with me. "

Gann remembered those names. One faithful during the battle with Garius, one tortured and turned against her, one mysteriously absent. And they had been her oldest companions. How had such a thing come to pass?

"In Neverwinter, I sought out his half-brother Duncan, who'd also gathered one of the shards that night, and then a sage to scry them. It should have been simple. Half the city was locked down, though, and I had to join the City Watch and run various errands for them to earn permission to enter the restricted area, where the sage Aldanon lived. Two humans – a paladin named Casavir and a sorceress, Qara – and a gnome bard, Grobnar Gnomehands, joined forces with me, each for their own reasons.

"When we finally reached him, we learnt that the shards were of a silver githyanki sword, that none of the swords had ever been broken before, and that we should seek the Haven of a dead wizard named Ammon Jerro to learn more."

She shrugged slightly. "We didn't know he was the same as the warlock who'd fought at West Harbour. Nobody knew.

"Aldanon told us we would need a blood relative to enter Ammon Jerro's Haven, and according to the records there was only one left, a farmer named Shandra, who we'd met briefly on our way to Neverwinter. Unfortunately, the githyanki were a step ahead of us. Even after we'd brought her safely to Neverwinter, they managed to kidnap her. They took her deep in Luskan territory – if you think of a Rashemi, taken from the centre of Mulsantir and into Thay, you might have some idea of what that meant." Tarva looked at her companions, for the first time since she'd begun the narrative; both Safiya and Gann understood, and Kaelyn was a little more at sea.

"Duncan called in a debt from a ranger named Bishop to track her. We were ambushed by githyanki only hours after crossing the Luskan border, in a town called Ember, and we saw many more of them, as we hunted them to their lair. We weren't the only ones – the cave system was crawling with demons and devils alike, led by a man with glowing tattoos on his face. We only saw him for a moment – when he ordered them to kill us – but as we discovered much, much later, he was actually Ammon Jerro, who'd been trapped in the Lower Planes since the battle at West Harbour. He was chasing the shards, in order to reforge the Sword of Gith. The King of Shadows was slowly rising to power again, you see."

Gann took a moment to figure that out. One man: raised the Sword against King of Shadows, whose Haven held knowledge of the githyanki blades, tried to kill Tarva and her group, later stood with Tarva against Garius. Busy man.

He'd missed part of what Tarva was saying, though. "-confronted the githyanki leader. She called the shards to her – almost all of them I carried. What's when I found out about the one lodged inside me."

A shadow of old pain passed over her face, imperfectly masked by the flickering firelight. However the githyanki managed to 'call' the shards, Gann thought, it had hurt badly when one was embedded beside your heart.

"We defeated her," Tarva said simply. "She cursed me with her dying breath, said she was never the true enemy. We recovered Shandra, returned to Neverwinter. I managed to get some of the story about the shard in my chest from Duncan."


	16. Again Kalach-Cha

Tarva took a deep breath before continuing with her story. "And then the Luskan ambassador, who worked both for Luskan and a man called Black Garius, accused me of a massacre. Ember had been razed, its inhabitants slaughtered, and a witness had seen me leading the murderers." She was impassive, the recital hardly faltering as she added, "They saw me killing children. Burning them alive." Even a deaf man, though, would have heard the lie, the neutrality hiding the depths. "Luskan had the right to demand me turned over for a nice, messy, public execution."

"But you were innocent!" Kaelyn protested softly, and Tarva laughed, a bitter, mocking sound that had absolutely nothing of mirth in it whatsoever.

"Of course. But that meant nothing to Luskan. They'd butchered Ember themselves, and I was a convenient scapegoat – or their intended target. In order to circumvent Luskan, Lord Nasher, the ruler of the city, made me a squire of one of their knights, meaning that I was entitled to a fair trial in Neverwinter, and sent Sand, an elven wizard who'd studied in Luskan, to help me gather evidence and serve as my advocate in the trial.

"We were able to prove to the court's satisfaction that the whole thing was a Luskan plot; that someone had magically disguised himself as me to commit the atrocity; that I was innocent. And then the Luskan ambassador claimed her right of trial by combat. She chose as her champion a man named Lorne Starling – " she paused a moment. "The one who'd impersonated me. _I knew him_. He was from West Harbour. And now he was a Luskan murderer.

__"I... killed him. The ambassador left Neverwinter in disgrace, Ember was avenged. And then I went back to West Harbour, and I told his mother what her little boy had become, and what I had done to him." Tarva's voice had grown hoarse; she stopped, took a long drink, her face hidden by the flask, and then resumed._ _

__"And I pressed my father for some answers... he didn't tell me very much. I don't think he could."  
She had worshipped him, Gann realised, putting together her reactions, and the not-quite tone of voice. Possibly she still did. She had taken everything he had ever said to her straight to heart, which would always have been dangerous, but in this case..._ _

__"Well," Tarva said. "Bishop, Sand and Shandra decided to keep travelling with me."_ _

__Gann had seen Bishop and Sand – but a farmer named Shandra? An unlikely history for the yellow, veiled woman._ _

__"Back in Neverwinter, we learnt the sage Aldanon had been kidnapped. We chased a shard, and lost it to Ammon Jerro, who tried to kill us again. We tracked Aldanon to a mouldering fortress called Crossroad Keep, where Black Garius was attempting a ritual to gain the power of the King of Shadows. We got Aldanon out of there, but didn't manage to interrupt the ritual in time. It looked as though Garius and his lieutenants simply died. Instead, as we found out later, they had become Shadow Reavers – powerful, invincible undead." She paused again, looked around. "Everyone still following?"_ _

__They nodded. She went on._ _

__"We also rescued Garius's other prisoners – the Luskan ambassador, who told us everything she knew in exchange for her life, and a githzerai cleric named Zhjaeve."_ _

__A planar cleric. That would be the yellow-skinned woman, then. What had happened to Shandra?  
__

"She had been spying on the githyanki for her people – the githyanki and the githzerai being bitterest enemies - and wanted to help me. She knew something of the Sword of Gith and of the King of Shadows. 

__"At her advice we travelled to the Ruins of Arvahn, an Illefarn city. There we gained four of the five parts of the Ritual of Purification – the Illefarn had left the statues that encased them, in case it proved necessary. The last lay through a Song Portal, which Zhjaeve opened for us.  
"It took us to West Harbour. It... had been destroyed. The bodies were still lying between the houses." She stopped, took another swallow of water. "My father was not among them._ _

__"We searched the Illefarn ruins in the Mere, and we found the final statue, just in time to see a Shadow Reaver destroy it. Without the complete Ritual, the King of Shadows could not be destroyed. The Reaver let slip that someone else had been there before us, though, and so, between us, we had a complete Ritual. If we could find him. As it turned out, it was Ammon Jerro."_ _

__A very busy man, Gann thought._ _

__"We returned to Crossroad Keep, which Nasher turned over to me to rebuild, fortify and make ready for war. Aldanon had managed to work out where Ammon Jerro's Haven was, and we left immediately. We faced several trials to gain entrance, but the final one was the spilling of Shandra's blood. She cut her hand and let the blood fall – and then she disappeared._ _

__"Within Ammon's Haven, Jerro blood was very powerful. Shandra could teleport, although she had little control over it, and project her mind to ours, as we discovered as we gave chase. The place was powered by three tanar'ri and three baatezu – altogether, six of the most powerful denizens of the Lower Planes, held by Ammon Jerro. We managed to gain the co-operation of four of them to open a portal into the inner sanctum, where Ammon Jerro attacked us – for the shards, and for penetrating his Haven. We were holding him to a standstill, when Shandra spoke into my mind and told me that here, he was invincible, but that she could undo that. She shed her blood again, to shatter the summoning circles that held the demons and devils. They escaped, and took with them much of Ammon Jerro's power._ _

__"He felt the loss, and left us. He caught Shandra as she undid the last circle, weak with blood loss. And he killed her."_ _

__That's what happened to Shandra. The shock on Safiya and Kaelyn's faces was probably a match for his own. And for the set of Tarva's face, which was no longer entirely hiding her emotions. Shandra's death still haunted her._ _

__"With her dying breath, she called him grandfather – and he knew what he'd done. We found him standing over her body, the Haven crumbling around us. With the last shred of power remaining in the Haven, he took us back to Crossroad Keep._ _

__"Suffice it to say, that we eventually came to an understanding on the matters of the shards, the Ritual of Purification, and the King of Shadows. Ammon Jerro was obsessed with stopping him, and we needed each other. So Ammon Jerro joined us."_ _

__"Events sped up, " Tarva said. "The King of Shadows had claimed much of the Mere. Lord Nasher knighted me. We re-activated an Illefarn blade golem. We formed alliances with lizardmen and Khelgar's clan. My father arrived at the Keep, bringing information –the Druidic Circle of the Mere, Elanee's Circle, was still alive. We sought them out, tried to gain an alliance, but they had turned to darkness and attacked us. Elanee helped us destroy them, but could not bear to leave the Mere again."_ _

__Elanee – the name he hadn't recognised, was the one who had 'stayed in her dying swamp' according to Garius. One of those Tarva thought she had failed. He supposed that to desert the fight when you were still needed was a betrayal of sorts._ _

__"The new Luskan ambassador lured Zhjaeve, Qara and me into an ambush by promising us the Shadow Reaver's true names. We killed her and took them – and we discovered that we could permanently destroy the Reavers by using them. We claimed the Tome of Iltkazar from one of the Shadow Reavers."_ _

__Safiya's eyes went very wide at the mention of the Tome. Her voice almost squeaked with excitement."You've seen the Tome of Iltkazar? Held it, read it?"_ _

__Tarva almost smiled, absently, her scythe laid aside. "Sand reacted almost exactly the same way._ _

__"We learnt how to reforge the Sword of Gith from a crystal dragon spirit, and then we returned to West Harbour, to the scar of the earth where the blade had shattered, and we did it. It was... not a compete sword, as such; it was held together by magic and by my will. I was the only one who could bear it, since the shard was still in my chest. Lord Nasher's forces were overrun to the south, and he returned to my Keep to heal._ _

__"The King of Shadows's undead army, lead by Garius, marched on Crossroad Keep. We managed to slow their approach, but not for long. We were under siege by night, managed to bring down their siege towers. We thought we only had to hold them until dawn. We were wrong. Garius was empowering them. We fell back to hold the gate. But that wasn't possible._ _

__"My companion Bishop had smashed the locking mechanism."_ _

__Bishop. The treacherous piece of scum. Clearly an accurate description. Not only had he stood with Garius at the final confrontation, slain the man who loved her, but he'd doomed all the soldiers of her Keep as well? Gann had seen him only in her dreams, and even so, he was feeling death could not have come to a more deserving man._ _

__"He slipped out the open gate to join the King of Shadows, and the undead poured in. We managed to hold them in the courtyard, for a time – and then Garius arrived and summoned the Nightwalker, the King of Shadows's avatar. We... only just managed to defeat it. Ammon Jerro recited Garius's True Name; he fled; the undead burst into flame. We'd won._ _

__"More than that – Aldanon and Sand had managed to unlock the Tome of Iltkazar to teleport us into the centre of the King of Shadows's power in the Mere. We left almost at once._ _

__"We arrived in an Illefarn ruin deep underneath the Mere. Neeshka was taken from our midst. We fought our way through the ruins, defeating the final Shadow Reavers. In the inner sanctum, we found Neeshka, who had been tortured by Garius. We met Garius again, Bishop by his side. Qara was swayed by his promises of power, and betrayed us. We fought them, and we triumphed, but not without loss. Casavir was dead."_ _

__Not 'Bishop killed him' but 'he was dead'._ _

__"Your cleric could not raise him?" the Dove asked softly, and Gann saw the effort it took Tarva to answer._ _

__"As you would know, Kaelyn, you cannot resurrect those who do not wish to be called back to life."_ _

__"I... see. But why-"_ _

__Gann cut across her. "Go on, Tarva." She looked at him for a moment. He saw a flicker of something that might have been gratitude._ _

__"And in the time it took us to defeat them, the King of Shadows had gathered enough strength to enter our world. Ammon Jerro and I performed the Ritual of Purification, and he was weakened. For a moment, we thought it was enough. Then hundreds of him, smaller, weaker shapes cloaked in darkness, issued from the Illefarn statues in the sanctum."_ _

__Her words were very simple, and came nowhere near evoking the experience he'd shared in her dream. She had promised them the facts, but they did not touch what had happened to her, what she'd faced._ _

__"We fought them off, and then he re-formed himself, bigger than before. He was drawing power from the statues. We smashed them. He drew power from the inter-planar portal he'd come from; the Sword of Gith was able to disrupt it. Finally, he was left with nothing – and then we destroyed him."_ _

__There was a long silence. Tarva looked away from them, into the darkness. "With his... death, the Illefarn ruins crumbled about us. We tried to escape. I don't remember... I think... Well. I woke in a barrow in Rashemen, cut open, the shard removed, and sewn back together, and after that... you know the rest." She sighed, coming back to them, present in a way she hadn't been during the long recital. "It's late. You should rest – I'll take first watch."_ _

__They all understood the unsubtle dismissal. Kaelyn nodded and traced a shape in the air between them – a sign of Ilmater's blessing. Safiya rose, tucked away her spellbook, and wished them a good night. Gann simply nodded to her before turning in._ _

__Sleep did not come easily to him that night._ _


	17. Chauntea

In the black depths of the night, Gann woke from his dreams of the city beneath the waves. He opened his eyes, saw Tarva. As far as he could tell, she hadn't moved a muscle since she'd sent them to bed. She stared out into the distance, her face empty of emotion. He studied her, as he'd done many times since they started travelling together, noting again each small detail of her features. The set of her small mouth, the strands of blue-black hair that played about her sharp-boned face, the deepening shadows under her eyes... Safiya was beautiful, and Kaelyn was lovely; Tarva was not even pretty, but sometimes Gann had to remind himself of the fact. He appreciated the strong lines of her face, the way she had never ceased to intrigue him from their first meeting, and their constant verbal sparring.

Now, watching her as the dim firelight played in the hollows of her face, he could see that there was a subtle easing of its tension. She had found it difficult to tell them her story, but doing so had helped her in some way. It was such a strange, dramatic series of events – probably if anyone else had claimed to live through them, to do all those deeds, he would have doubted it, but her unornamented narrative had carried conviction.

Besides, he had seen her dreams-

"What are you doing awake, Gann?" she said softly.

She hadn't even been looking at him. "How could you tell?"

The half-elf tapped one pointed ear. "These aren't purely decorative, you know, and it's a quiet night. I heard the change in your breathing. Answer the question."

Ah, well. Since the honest 'watching you' would probably not go down well... "Volunteering to take the next watch."

She regarded him steadily, then sighed. "Thank you, but that won't be necessary."

Gann rose from his bedroll, wrapping one of the blankets about him against Rashemen's bitter cold. "Now, that seems rather unwise." He skirted around Kaelyn's sleeping form and Okku's furry bulk, and sat down beside her. "You were surely not planning to watch all night by yourself?"

He could only surmise that the effort of lowering her guard enough to tell them of her past was letting other things slip out as well when she answered, "Gann, I haven't slept in days. I may as well keep watch and let everyone else rest." He opened his mouth to say something – she shook her head. "No, I don't want Safiya to spell me down. The... the Hunger is getting stronger, and I can't afford to lose control."

"So you'll simply stay awake fighting it, whilst you grow weaker? I saw you fumble your attack yesterday."

He had expected anything other than the simple weariness of her response. "What other choice do I have?" It silenced him for a moment – but only a moment.

"I could summon an elemental for you."

He saw her breath catch in her throat. Then she shook her head. "Thank you, but I can last another night. If I don't find anything tomorrow, though, I... will take you up on that. Go back to sleep, Gann."

She woke them at dawn, having watched the night alone; they were moving again before the sun had fully dispelled the night. Okku told them he fully expected they would reach Immil Vale before noon, but he was barely listened to at all. Both Kaelyn and Safiya had also picked up on the slight change in Tarva, and were terribly curious to boot. They peppered her with questions as the group travelled. Kaelyn wanted to know everything about the Sword of Gith - somehow it fed back into the Crusade, Gann gathered. Well, with Kaelyn, everything did.

Safiya wanted to know more of the Illefarn and Netherese empires, of the construction of the Guardian, the Ritual of Purification, and a whole heap of other arcane trivia, which gave nobody any satisfaction at all, both because the subjects only interested Safiya, and because Tarva didn't know many of the answers.

After a while, in self-defense, Gann joined in, and the conversation branched out a little. There were still awkward moments – there were several questions touching on her companions or herself that she simply ignored, and when Kaelyn brought up Ember, Tarva stopped so pointedly that even the cleric understood she'd crossed a line.

It was still several hours after that before she said anything to them.

Finally, the small group crested the mountains, and looked down, to see Immil Vale spread out at their feet, green and lush. The Red Tree shone like a beacon, far below them; Gann found his eyes caught by a large, mossy monolith. The rocky trail that led down the mountainside looked stable enough; the huge wyverns that infested it were slightly more intimidating. They descended, and the cold of a Rashemen winter gradually became a warmth Gann had never experienced and wasn't sure he enjoyed. Okku was grumbling similarly – although both of them had known that Immil Vale was volcanic and noticeably warmer than the surrounding lands, neither of them had experienced it before.

The women, however, were all delighted. When they reached the bottom of the trail – after nearly an hour and five wyverns – and saw the clear water of the swiftly-flowing river, they were very nearly ecstatic. The feeling faded somewhat as they talked with the pair of telthor witches, promised to look for the bheur, decided to camp under the Mosstone and then prepared to make their petition to Chauntea.

Pure water, ash and a couple of blighted leaves. Gann looked rather askance at the mixture as Tarva stood beneath the Red Tree and smeared some of the ointment across her forehead. "And this is supposed to summon one of your gods?" he asked. Okku sniffed at it, and nodded; Kaelyn made a soft sound of protest at Gann's acidic tone.

"According to Gnarlthorn, yes," Tarva said. "Although, technically, Chauntea's a goddess. The one _I_ worship, as a matter of fact."

"Ah, of course," Kaelyn said. "You bear her scythe."

"Weren't you listening the other night when Tarva suggested a combination of militia training and farming work was responsible for her choosing a scythe as her weapon?" Safiya asked.  
"There is rarely only one reason for-"

"Please," Tarva said, cutting across Kaelyn's retort. She laid her palm flat against the trunk of the Red Tree, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her lips moved in silent prayer; Gann could decipher some of the words – 'Chauntea' and 'blight' and something that could have been 'mother'. She came to the end of her plea to the goddess.

And nothing happened as far as he could see. He exchanged a shrug with Safiya; Kaelyn's head was bowed; Okku was impassive. "Well-" he said, and would have said more, but there was a change – Okku caught it first, his head coming up as the soft breeze died abruptly and the chatter of birds ceased. The silence rolled across the Vale, sweeping towards the group at the Red Tree, gathering strength until Gann could not even hear his own breathing.

Following on the heels of the great silence came the sense of presence, a presence and awareness who was focusing on them. Its regard, somehow warm, maternal, both familiar and alien, was profoundly uncomfortable - oppressive and thick as a storm waiting to break, with the same feeling of power held in check. Gann didn't dare move as it gathered about them, but he could still see Tarva, her hand on the Tree, her eyes closed. The neutrality she so carefully maintained was gone, replaced by such a deep peace that he wondered for an awful moment if she had died.

The pressure of the awareness intensified until it was almost unbearable, until Gann was certain they'd shatter under its weight – and then it lifted and dispersed. The sounds of the Vale resumed; he took a deep breath; Tarva turned back to them, a clear flask full of a golden liquid in her hand. There was a brilliance in her eyes; he saw it for only a moment, but it had looked like unshed tears.

She blinked rapidly, and looked straight at Kaelyn.

"Chauntea answered you," the half-celestial said simply.

"Yes," Tarva said, sounding slightly hoarse. "Is that – is that what it's like for you?"

"When I dwelt in the House of the Triad," the Dove said, her soft voice coloured with loss.

"I'm sorry." Tarva placed her hand on Kaelyn's shoulder, and the two of them stood in silence for a moment. Safiya raised her delicate eyebrow at Gann; she had clearly not followed the conversation any more than Gann had. He shrugged again. They had the cure they'd come to find, although it hadn't been a pleasant experience as far as he was concerned, it had apparently touched Tarva deeply in some way. Let the god-followers work the rest out; that was enough for him.

It was still a little time before they recovered their composure enough to press onwards, though. Tarva had decided that they would look for the bheur, the winter hag who could possibly help them with the Shape of Fire, and that they would see what dreams the Mosstone could show them.

However, their first priority - in this summer oasis of a winter land - would be to bathe.


	18. Bheur

"I shall bathe after you, ladies," Gann said as they surveyed the completed camp beneath the Mosstone. "I shall take Okku as chaperone. His nose is sharp enough to sniff you out, should any of you attempt to watch me bathing, and his bulk is sufficient to protect me should you be overcome with passion and try to take advantage of me."

Kaelyn looked bemused, Safiya snorted, and a corner of Tarva's mouth quirked upward. "A wise precaution indeed. What do you think, Okku? Are you capable of protecting Gann from his most persistent admirer?"

"Possibly, little one," the bear-god rumbled. "But I would have to remove his eyes to stop him watching himself bathing."

"That, ah, really won't be necessary," Gann said.

"I am very glad to hear it," Tarva said, and with Kaelyn and Safiya, left the camp for the river.  
It was interesting, Gann thought. In many ways, the weapon master was the most formidable of all of them in combat; if she closed with him or Safiya, neither of them would stand against her, and Kaelyn would not give her much more difficulty. She'd already single-handedly held her own against Okku, although it was impossible to guess which of them would overcome the other if they were to fight in earnest. Tarva had the advantage of a greater reach, and she was quicker, but Okku was stronger by far, and his endurance was near limitless – yes, Gann thought, that would be a fight to watch.

But all of that only applied to Tarva when she was prepared and equipped; she was wholly dependent on her arms and armour. She was the only one of them who had no inbuilt defences. If she were caught off-guard, she would not present any threat at all to any of the spellcasters of their group, and Okku would tear her apart. It was probably just as well that she'd taken Kaelyn and Safiya with her to the river – if they should be attacked, she was extremely unlikely to come to harm between the wizard and the healer.

The fact that it made for a pleasing mental image was entirely irrelevant.

"You are unnaturally quiet, hagspawn," Okku's deep voice interrupted the imagined splashing of water and sunshine on bare skin.

"I was thinking about our spirit-eater," he said with utter truth.

The bear's expressions were difficult to read, even for Gann, who'd been raised by animals, but Okku was definitely watching him. He opened his large mouth – and shut it again, as the soft, warm breeze carried the sounds of clanking armour. They both tensed as Tarva ran into view – still armoured, and not noticeably cleaner. On the other hand, she didn't seem stressed, and she'd left her scythe behind. She wasn't even out of breath. "Slight change of plan," she told them. "We found the bheur."

"Oh?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "We went down to the river and found it iced over. You tell me what else it could be. Okku, would you mind keeping an eye on the camp, while I steal Gann and we go check this out?"

The great bear nodded; Gann followed her down to the icy river, where Safiya and Kaelyn were waiting. "We've been looking around," Safiya told them and pointed, "and there seems to be a cave between the frozen waterfalls."

"That would fit," Gann said. "While there are many of my kind – of my mother's kind – the heart of winter beats in the bheur's chest. She thrives in cold, and hides away from the warmth of this Vale in her cavern. Anything that shields us against the chill of winter would aid us, if we choose to fight her."

" 'If we choose to fight'?" Tarva asked. "She won't attack us?"

"She will talk of herself," Gann said. "As you may have noticed, we hags, even half-hags, are a talkative people. It is a form of self-flattery to go on about oneself in any possible circumstance, and we enjoy the sound of our own voices. From what I know of women of my own kind, they tend to prattle on even more than the men."

Tarva shook her head, her face utterly serious save for a spark deep within her eyes. "Forget protection against the cold, then – if this hag is more talkative than Gann, we shall need protection against sonic damage. Do any of you happen to have such a spell prepared?"

"I do not," Kaelyn said softly.

"Unfortunately not," Safiya answered. "I must confess, I find it difficult to imagine anyone capable of talking more than you, Gann, but should we encounter such a being, I doubt my poor spells would stand up to the challenge."

He sighed dramatically, laid the back of his hand against his forehead. "I am emotionally wounded. Deeply. The bheur is not the only creature in this vicinity with a heart of ice."

"Leaving that aside," Tarva said, "I don't know anything about hags, except that the witches don't want this one here, they take human mates and the male offspring, such as Gann, are called hagspawns. I'm not all that fond of the witches – is there any good reason to kill the bheur for them? Particularly when she may help us with the Shape of Fire?"

Gann stared at her. Safiya was doing the same thing. Tarva clearly wasn't being modest when she said she didn't know much about hags. Safiya spoke first. "Tarva, after they're done with their human mates, they _eat them alive_."

"Oh," she said, clearly shocked. "I see." Then she frowned slightly, and looked at Gann. "So that's why – your parents-?"

"Yes," he said shortly.

"Gann, I'm sorry."

He simply shrugged in response. It was not a subject he cared to discuss, and given the words she'd placed in her dream-Garius's mouth, she already knew far more about it than he would have preferred. "Shall we go see this hag, then?"

Tarva nodded, reclaimed her scythe from Kaelyn, and led them up the icy path to the cave. Even for Gann, who was used to Rashemen's winters, it was bitterly cold inside; for the three women, who'd taken all of three seconds to adjust themselves to Immil Vale's warmer climate, it was even more unpleasant. Their breath hung in the air, clouding their vision, and the footing was slippery. All in all, not the best conditions for a fight.

They were attacked almost immediately by an orglash – an elemental of snow and glacial winds. It swirled about them, chilling them, numbing their hands, but strong as it was, it stood no chance against a starving spirit-eater. The dark mass burst free of Tarva and reached for the orglash, draining its energy into its host, destroying the elemental utterly. Safiya picked up the small glowing essences and stuffed them into a pocket as Tarva caught her breath.

They went on. The cave – an abandoned mine? – was not deep, and they found the hag almost immediately. Surrounded by more orglashes.

"Visitors? But you didn't send a messenger to let me know!" The hag looked dismayed to see them. As much as a seven-foot, skinny woman with wild hair and a hooked nose could, anyway.   
"This place is a sty, human remains everywhere – if you'd let me know you were coming, I would have cleaned up! And just look at my outfit – oh, this is just a disaster all around. You do know it's impolite to drop in on an old woman unannounced, don't you? What do you want? You can't be here for this ghastly landscape. I don't understand how anyone can tolerate it for more than a few minutes without fleeing for some nice glacier or snowy mountain. I would myself, but here I sit, blistering in this sweltering heat, and does anyone care? Does anyone ask how I'm doing? Of course not. I'm a _hag_. Do you think I'm talking for the sheer pleasure of it, half-breed? Answer me!"

The question was directed at Gann. "Madam, we seek- "

"How dare you interrupt! In my day, we would eat our young for such insolence. I'm miserable, I'm stuck here, that's how I'm doing, thanks so much for asking. Those two old bats at the Red Tree are watching day and night, and if they see me, every hathran between here and Thay will come knocking on my doorstep uninvited, like some others I could mention. Every year they drive me away, the monsters, even celebrate it. Ding dong, the wicked hag is gone! Well, this year, I thought I'd show 'em, and I stayed. Here in my cramped little hole, one innocent old woman hiding from those horrible harpies, and is that working out for me? No!"

Safiya and Tarva exchanged glances, Gann tried to interject something, but the hag just kept talking. "The temperature's unbearable, and my best efforts even in this little cave just aren't getting anywhere because the whole area's volcanic, curse it! I can't even lay down a proper snow layer to make it more friendly outside, not that I'd want to because those witches would spot it. For a little old lady who carries winter with her, it's a good hiding spot, but somehow they know I'm still here, and I haven't had one bit of peace with them lurking around that tree out there!"

"There's ice outside, that's how we found you," Tarva said, somehow managing to get a whole sentence out as the hag glared at her.

"You could make yourself useful and get rid of it, hide my tracks. Oh, no, you wouldn't do that for an old hag, rude child, interrupting your elder and visiting without warning. No one wants to help a hag, we're so old and ugly. A burden on society. I should just hurry up and die, alone and unloved, in my hole in the ground, is that it? Not even my son ever visits, disgusting lout, won't answer even one of my letters, I even sent him a present, a nice touch of winter for him distilled from my pets here, and did he thank me?" And she just kept talking.

"Someone who talks more than Gann," Safiya said, shaking her head, as the hag kept ranting, telling them about how she'd met with a spirit of fire and put out some of his burning trees. "Never thought to see it."

Tarva regarded the chattering hag with some uncertainty. "Well, she just told us how to deal with the Shape of Fire. That's one thing. But... I hadn't expected her to be, well, a person. I don't like this –"

"Eats them alive," Safiya reminded her.

She took a deep breath. "Right. All the fire-based spells you've got then," she told the spellcasters, and swung her scythe down from her shoulder and into position. The hag noticed that.

"Oh, really, that's rude. Drawing weapons in front of your hostess, even when you weren't invited? Just kick an old woman while she's down, why don't y-" And then the first of Safiya's Fireballs hit her, closely followed by Gann's Flame Strike, and she never really got to finish her sentence.

A short while later, they stood at the cave's entrance. Tarva was holding a jar of condensed orglash essence, while Kaelyn and Safiya melted the ice. Gann rapidly found himself banished back to the camp, while the women took the bath they'd been longing for.


	19. Gann

Gann was caught in a problem he'd never encountered before and that he wasn't sure how to solve. He'd done his best, exercised all of his considerable wits, and now he was almost ready to admit defeat and simply take the expedient answer. Safiya would certainly recommend it. Except to do so would destroy a part of himself.

A little hesitantly, Gann padded back to the campsite beneath the huge Mosstone, and saw Safiya and Tarva there. Safiya had dug up a fresh set of red robes and draped the others to dry, alongside Tarva's armour padding. The half-elf had laid aside her armour for once. She seemed smaller than usual, dressed in plain trews and oversized white shirt, and almost fragile. Surely one of them could help him. "Ladies... a little help here?"

They looked up at the normally-immaculate hagspawn. There was a definite twitch at the corner of Tarva's mouth. Safiya burst into laughter.

"It's not that funny!" Gann protested their reaction to the snarled tangle of his hair.

"However did you manage that?" Tarva asked, shaking her head slightly. Her slightly damp, but reasonably knot-free hair flew about her face. Gann considered that adding insult to injury.

He shrugged, and held up the two pieces of his broken comb. "I'm not sure."

He was, if he said so himself, a mess.

Safiya looked at him, ran a hand over her bare scalp, and looked at Tarva. "I think this one's all yours. I wouldn't have the first idea. I can lend Gann a razor, though."

"You never grew enough hair to knot?" Tarva asked.

Safiya shook her head. "I've been a Red Wizard as long as I can remember. Possibly longer. I got my first scalp tattoo at the age of eight."

"Oh, really? Which one's that?" Tarva asked, looking at the delicate tracings that decorated Safiya's bald head.

The Red Wizard bent her head down and tapped a figure of a small creature, its wings spread, right at the top of her head.

Tarva frowned at it. "What is it, Kaji?"

Safiya grinned at her. "A homunculi, yes. All the other students and Master Djafi were suggesting a dragon, but – "

"A homunculi's much more original," Tarva nodded.

"Exactly. Nothing says 'I'm an edgy and interesting individual, just like everyone else!' better than a dragon tattoo. I think there were at least fifty of them in my Soul Theory class." Tarva snickered.

"If we could just focus here? On me?" Gann said plaintively. He had expected them to tease him – one of the reasons it'd taken a while to ask for help in the first place. On the other hand, he hadn't seen Tarva so relaxed in days.

"Of course," Tarva said, her face stilling until only a glint of mischief danced in her eyes and about her mouth. "Safiya, don't you think Gann looks terrible? Whatever could have happened to the self-proclaimed handsomest dreamwalker in Rashemen?"

The wizard tilted her head to one side. "I hate to speculate... but if the walking dandelion clock over here gives me a few more facts, I could perhaps be in position to-"

"Please," he said. "I find myself somewhat desperate here."

"Oh, that's flattering," Tarva tossed over her shoulder, starting to dig through her pack. "We are the unpleasant last resort, Safiya. Clearly the mere possession of tangled hair negates all of Gann's charm. Knowing that, I'm not sure I can undo those knots and set him loose on Rashemen again. Both my conscience and good sense have difficulties with the idea."

Safiya sighed. "You'll just have to risk it, I think. How can we depend on a messy Gann in combat? He'd be far too busy worrying about his hair to spellcast."

"I'm standing right here," Gann pointed out.

"So you are," Tarva said. "And if you sit down over there," she gestured at a fallen log, with a hand that held a bone comb, "you'll still be able to hear Safiya and me talking about you, and I can do something about those knots."

Gann obediently took the indicated seat, and expressed his curiosity as to the whereabouts of Kaelyn and Okku.

"Okku's gone hunting," Tarva told him, moving behind him and poking cautiously at the tangle of silvery hair. "He got tired of standing guard for you, thought there'd probably be fresh game here. Kaelyn went with him."

"And I sent Kaji scouting," Safiya added.

"Kaji as a scout?" Tarva said, taking Gann's head in both hands and turning it to the side. A somewhat unsettling sensation, to be sure. Safiya was just out of his field of vision, and Tarva was only just within it, if slightly out of focus. "How does that work?"

"He flies around at random and stops to look at things. If there's danger, he flees, and I look through his eyes every now and again. It's not very effective if there's a lot of danger around."  
"I bet," Tarva said, comb and fingers freeing a small lock from its tangle at the side of his face. Gann had thought she'd simply yank the knots free, together with a good portion of his hair as well. He hadn't expected the gentleness of her touch.

"It also gets problematic if he sees something interesting. Last time, he stared at a shiny pebble for nearly two hours."

He was acutely aware of how near she was, that she was not wearing armour, of the warmth of her body and the scent of her skin, of the soft brushing of her fingers against his scalp... It was very pleasant, and he made a mental note to remember 'ridiculously knotted hair' as a possible future gambit. Not for use on Tarva, though; it was a point of pride not to be predictable.

"It could have been worse, I suppose," Tarva said, working behind him.

The less pleasant side of the present state of affairs was the knowledge she wasn't reacting to _his_ nearness in any way that he could detect, which was a little galling, and the fact he'd been celibate since she'd fished him out of the Mulsantir prison.

"Oh, yes," Safiya shuddered. "But I fiddled with the binding spell, and I don't think it'll happen again. I certainly hope not."

If the Mosstone worked as the hathran had said, they would dream that night, and Gann could surely follow her there. Even if it didn't, the spirit-eater had finally fed, and so Tarva should be able to sleep. Certainly she needed it. If she didn't fall asleep naturally, he'd have a talk to Safiya and fix the matter, whether she liked it or not.

There was a sudden coolness as Tarva drew his hair away from his face. "Oh, look at that," Safiya said. "Gann has two eyes after all! Who would have suspected it?"

"What do you think, Safiya? Shall I braid his hair? Put it in pigtails? A nice, neat little bun?"

He reached up to touch the straight, untangled hair. "Loose is fine, thank you," he said, aware that she was still working with a small knot right at the ends.

She tugged at it gently. "Oh, you spoil all my fun. There you go." Tarva stepped over the log and looked critically at him. She nodded slightly and then swept him a bow. "Tarva El-Auri at your service, weapon master and hairdresser. Who would have thought it?"

"I think I preferred the dandelion-clock version," Safiya said.

"There is clearly no end to your talents," Gann said to Tarva, ignoring the Red Wizard, "and I am eternally in your debt."

"Oh, good," Tarva said, looking over his shoulder. He turned, to see Okku and Kaelyn approaching, dragging the carcass of a deer between them. "Then you're responsible for turning that into dinner."

"But I just bathed!" he protested automatically, then realised just how stupid he sounded.

She _looked_ at him. Yes, that had sounded even sillier than he'd thought.

"Of course," he said.


	20. The Red Woman

Darkness fell and the usual night's routine proceeded. Preparation of spells, maintenance of weapons and armour, and, finally, rest. Okku stood on watch as the rest drifted into sleep...

Gann waits in the dream for Tarva to fall asleep. He can vaguely sense the familiar turbulence of Kaelyn and Safiya, already dreaming under the power of the Mosstone. He has peeked at their dreams before, but it's not an experience he cares to repeat. Kaelyn's dreams drive her, awake or asleep, an icy whiplash across her soul; they are swift and powerful, and without an anchor, he would not venture to navigate them. All he can remember is a brief glimpse: Kaelyn walked on the slopes of Celestia. All seemed peaceful and beautiful. She heard a whispering, and once she heard it, it grew louder, became clear; hushed cries, choking screams, coming from under her feet, and once she heard them, they rose like a tide to surround her and sweep her from Celestia.  


Judging from Gann's faint sense of a near dreamer, she dreams it once more.

And Safiya – well, there is something very odd about her dreams. They are broken, fragmented in a way he's never seen before. He'd lasted only moments, the first and only time he'd walked into her dreams – the shattered pieces, the ringing, overlapping voices had felt wrong, disturbing, almost sickening on some instinctive level. He'd fled – and Gann-of-Dreams never fled from a dream, or from a woman, for that matter.

After the first few weeks of Tarva's blankness, Kaelyn's power, Safiya's fractures, he'd even grown bored enough to walk into Okku's dreams – which had been very dull indeed. Scratching and sniffing, eating and sleeping, fighting and a lot of mating. He'd learnt more about the intimate life of bears than he'd ever wanted to know.

It was almost enough to make a dreamwalker retire and grow cabbages or something.  
Then he feels Tarva's presence in the dream. She is standing at the beginning of a spiral path, armed and armoured. Exactly as at the Wells of Lurue, it is both the woman and the spirit-eater entwined. She turns to greet him. "Gann. I wondered if I'd see you here."

"And here I am. You need wonder no longer. Or rather, you may cease wondering about the possibility of my presence, and simply bask in the wonder of its reality."

She shakes her head, the slightest hint of a smile lurking at the corner of her mouth. "If I find myself with nothing better to do, such as trimming my toenails, I'll consider doing just that. Are you coming?"

They walk down the spiral path together. Tarva looks up, around, and then she pauses. Gann has felt it, too.

"We are in Ashenwood – the Ashenwood that once was," he says. "But something is wrong here. Be on your guard."

"Someone's ahead," she whispers. "Hard to tell, but there's at least one fighter in full armour."

"Any casters?"

She shrugs. "No way of telling. Anyway, they might not be hostile, and even if they were, I can't sneak up on them." Rounding the final curve, Tarva a little ahead of Gann, they see two fighters and two spellcasters – and standing behind them, one Red Wizard.

She's bald, tattooed, beautiful, and rather familiar.

"Safiya?" Tarva asks, then shakes her head.

It isn't her, but the likeness is very strong, and the sense of her presence is almost the same, though distant and distorted. She isn't the one that concerns Gann, though. "Careful," he warns Tarva under his breath. "Those four mean us harm."

She nods and shifts her grip on the scythe. It's difficult to make them out in the drifting mist of the dreamscape, but one of them – a woman – notices them. "Someone walks in our lady's garden!"

They turn, and they focus on Tarva. "Don't take her away! She is ours!" A man, whose grip on sanity loosened long ago, Gann decides.

"How did you come to this place?" another asks. This one is more authoritative, the voice of a leader perhaps, but there is a sameness about all their voices that makes it hard to tell.

"Gann?" Tarva mutters, looking for guidance. She knows enough not to point out that this is a dream.

"We followed the path," he says. They seem to notice him for the first time.

"Two of them?" one of the men says. "How is that-"

"It matters not. The woman is a bearer of the Gift, nothing more. Drawn to the red lady, to the anchor, as we were. Echoes, memories, of those who bore the Gift."

"You were spirit-eaters." Tarva spits the words out. "Like me." Gann is a little taken aback at the venom in her voice. Worse is the fleeting similarity between her voice and theirs. It's very faint, but it's there all the same.

"Not like you. We worshipped the Gift, _revelled_ in it. Sweet Juraj here was the first of us," the authoritative voice says, and the woman who greeted them first flicks an insouciant salute. Tarva very nearly growls. "Koszik smashed her skull in with a rock, and the Gift passed to him." One who has not spoken nods. "He tried to devour a great tree spirit, but it fell on him and shattered his spine."

"Gnarlthorn," Tarva says. She's never looked stonier.

"Ivoi, here, he started by eating the dryad who guarded the telthor sanctuary." Not one of them reacts, but there is a moment of deep silence. He can hear Tarva's deep, regular breaths, and see the effort it takes her to _keep_ them deep and regular. "Ambitious," the voice goes on, "but not much help against Fell Trolls, particularly when he had no means to conjure fire. Luckily, I did. And I wanted the Gift. To satisfy _my_ hunger, I sought a greater spirit than any of these. I turned to the forest itself. I hired a guide who knew the secret trails to the Wood Man himself. He guided me true."

"The Shape of Fire," Gann says. He sees Tarva's curt nod, feels the sheer force of her anger burning icily beside him. Not a berserker's heated fury, but something cold and calculated, a force to be used rather than an emotion to rule. He makes a mental note never to provoke or draw that anger on himself.

"If you have walked under the eaves of the Ashenwood," the leader-voice says, "you have touched the Wood Man's essence. Every creature that dies in his domain, every corpse that moulders under rock or silent eave, is _joined_ to him. To drink of such a spirit... to gorge on the soul of the living forest... is to embrace the Gift as no one else. And for a time, even our hunger would be sated."

"For a time," Tarva says flatly. "Gorge on the soul of the living forest. Embrace the Gift. Do irreparable harm, give the Hunger even greater control over me, in exchange for _a time_ of satiation? _I don't think so_."

Without any warning, she charges them. It takes Gann precious seconds to react, and in that time the two fighter swarm her, and the spellcasters are already beginning to chant –

"Tarva!" he yells. "Brace!"

She ducks a swinging halberd, lowering her centre of gravity at the warning, and Gann summons an earthquake. The fighters are taken off-guard and struggle to keep their balance, giving Tarva the opening she needs to bring her scythe up in a clumsy – but lethally effective – strike under the edge of a helmet, and disrupts the spellcasters' concentration. Gann summons a Fire Elemental as Tarva scrambles for the spellcasters; the Elemental engages the remaining fighter – and after that, it's simple.

They approach the Red Woman.

"I waited for you," she says, and her voice, so like Safiya's, comes to them from a distance, almost echoing in the still air. "I feared you would not find me before... before the hunger took me."

"I... know you," Tarva says slowly, frowning and intent. "I saw you in the barrow. And..." she shakes her head, whatever she was going to add lost. "You're _not_ Safiya. Who are you?"

"I am only a memory of love. Lost in this remote place, but not forgotten, not entirely." She stretches out her hand, and offers Tarva a fragment of a mask. "I have saved this for you – it contains my essence, all that I am. I will be safe while it is in your hands."

Tarva takes the fragment from her, and an expression of relief passes over the Red Woman's serene features. "We will not see each other again," she says. "Not until you must call on the _memory_ of what once was. When the time comes... I will answer."


	21. Tarva and Gann

The Red Woman is still speaking, but the dreamscape is starting to dissipate around them as the dream ends and tries to push them back to the waking world. Gann shakes his head, and pulls the unravelling threads of dreaming back together. The Red Woman is gone, as he suspected, but that doesn't matter right now; the important thing is to keep Tarva asleep. Besides, finally he has the chance to share a dream with her, one of _his_ dreams, not her nightmare, or the strange visions granted by the Wells of Lurue and the Mosstone.

And he's been trying for the chance since he agreed to join her.

So, beneath a midnight sky, the blue-black colour of her hair, he recreates Immil Vale, giving glowing colours to each feature of the landscape. He weaves the Red Tree with ruddy light; the river shines silver; each blade of grass throws off its own spark of cool, green light. The night is warm and sweetly fragrant – a touch of which he is rather proud, as scents are the most difficult to capture in dreams.

Finally, he throws a handful of stars across the sky.

She looks only at the piece of mask the Red Woman gave her, turning it over in her fingers. "Wait," he says, as her form begins to grow translucent. "Don't you go waking up now, or I _will_ get Safiya to put you back under."

She grows solid again. "And why would you do something like that? I'm certain this fragment goes with the other one."

"I have fullest confidence in your mask-fragment recognition skills. But, Tarva-" she looks at him, raises one eyebrow, "you need to sleep. You can wait eight hours, or, preferably, ten, before you check something of which you're already convinced. There's no hurry. Now, though, you must rest." He smirks at her, not that she's watching; she still hasn't looked up from the mask piece. "Or are you really in such a hurry to escape my lovely dream? Such wonders I could show you." He makes a sweeping gesture to indicate the dreamscape he has constructed for her.

"I'm sure you co- oh." Her sentence is cut short as she finally looks up and sees the beauty around her. In the softly glowing light, her eyes are wide and impossibly dark. She turns slowly, drinking in the scenery.

"And this is all it takes to render you speechless? My, my."

"I have never claimed to be as fond as the sound of my own voice as you, Gann." Her retort is automatic and lacking in sarcasm; she is far too busy looking at everything. "You made all this?"

"Of course. Would you care to see more?" With a courtly bow, he offers her his arm, but isn't really surprised when she doesn't take it. Perhaps by the end of the evening...

They wander for a while, and Gann tells her something of dreamwalking, of the construction of dreams, and of the possibilities – "you are possessed of the Dreamer's Eye, and of enough will to influence the dream as you wish. Go ahead and try."

Tarva thinks this over a moment, and several shapes half form in the air around her. Gann watches, sees the hints of faces from her past, before they disappear again. Even here, even now? He pretends not to notice as they flicker about her. "Like so," he says, and coaxes a luminescent green stalk from the ground. It unfurls, putting out long, thin leaves; a bud appears, and opens shining ivory petals to release its delicate scent.

"I know a lot of farmers who'd love to learn that trick," Tarva says.

Gann chuckles. "No doubt, but dream-crops do not nourish the body." He stoops to pluck the flower and offer it to her. She hesitates for only a moment, and his fingers brush hers as she accepts it from him. She bends her head to smell it, and her hair hangs forward to hide her face in shadow. She doesn't move, but slowly and subtly, a melody is woven upon the gentle breeze – the first notes are barely sighed, but the music gradually gains strength and sureness.

It is hers. It sounds strange to Gann's ears; the harmonies are alien, and the instruments (if that is what is producing the sounds) are like nothing the Rashemi play. Even so, he can understand it; there is youth and joy at first, with a quiet, underlying melancholy that rises, and becomes loss. Finally, it is a farewell.

The last, soft notes die away, and Gann isn't sure what to say. She raises her head, her face carefully empty of emotion. He offers a light comment: "And you told us you were not a bard."

"I'm not. Grobnar composed it."

"The manic gnome with the clanking golem? It sounds... uncharacteristic."

"Trust a handsome man to judge solely by appearances," she says. "I won't deny some of Grobnar's compositions were..."

"More in keeping with a demented gnome?" he supplies.

"Distressing," she admits. "But he was very close to Shandra."

Gann puts it together. "He wrote that for her?"

Tarva simply nods, and they walk on in silence, for a time. The landscape ripples around them, no longer purely Gann's set-piece, but something more, something almost alive, something that responds to both of them. She still carries his flower; the mask fragment has disappeared somewhere into whatever she uses for pockets.

The Red Tree lets a glowing leaf fall as they walk underneath it; Tarva snatches it from the air, and it's a scarlet flame that dances in the calloused palm of her hand. She offers it to Gann, with a look he can't read. He stretches out his hand to take it, and is surprised to find it burns. She raises her eyebrows slightly, and this is easier to read; she is challenging him. He looks at it and cools its heat.

She shakes her head, and the flame heats again. "As it is, Gann." He nods, and reaches out again; carefully, his hand cuts between hers and the flickering tongue of fire. Its heat is uncomfortable, but not painful as he steadies it on his own palm. She smiles at him – as he has seen only once before, it is a true smile. "Was that so hard?"

"Not at all," he says, and raises his hand. He blows gently on the flame, but not to extinguish it. It rolls down along his fingers and hangs in the air, where it changes its shape, unfurling two wings and revealing a mild-eyed bird's head. The phoenix gives a melodious cry and beats its wings – a spicy scent wafts from them – and darts into the sky. Gann watches Tarva, her eyes shining, as she watches it fly away. The moments when he can see beneath her mask are becoming strangely precious to him.

"Everything is fluid here," he says. "It will answer to you. Even the form you wear now is shaped by your dreaming mind. You may take other semblances and shapes at will; you have your scythe and plate only because you are in the habit of carrying them. Why don't you dismiss them?"

She looks at him, and she's tried to put her neutrality back in place, but it's not perfect any more. Gann smiles inwardly to see it.

"You need not fear," he tells her softly. "This is my dream now, and no harm will ever come to you here."

"Nowhere is entirely safe," Tarva says.

"Don't you trust me?" he asks lightly. "Even after all this time?" He isn't sure how to react when she stops to ponder the question.

"I won't lie," she says, and looks him straight in the eyes. "Gann, I trust you with my life. But I don't trust you entirely."

This takes him a little off-guard. "What does that mean?"

"Every battle, every time you're on watch, my life is in your hands. I know it is safe there, that you're not about to stab me in the back, that your arrows and your spells will both fly true. But..." she pauses, looks for the right words. "You're not like Safiya or Okku, with their promises to keep, or even Kaelyn, with her quest. I know you're only really here because you were bored in that prison. Sooner or later – and I have no means of knowing when – you'll decide you've had enough, and you'll go."

Her words sting – all the more because he knows, from her point of view, they are entirely justified. "Not just because I was bored," Gann says lightly. "I was also rather intrigued by my visitor, the small woman in the heavy armour who carried a scythe taller than herself." He sees her spine stiffen, the wariness in her eyes. It hurts him a little, to see a woman react to him that way. He expects her to back away from him as he reaches out, but she holds her ground.  
This wasn't what he'd planned; he doesn't want to startle her, or become another of the memories that clearly haunt her, but...

"Tarva," he says, "brave one." He tries to keep his tone lightly teasing, but the words emerge hesitantly, low and intense, a plea. "Don't fear me." His hand shakes slightly as his fingers ghost along her cheekbone and curve under her jaw. Her skin is cool and soft under his touch; her eyes are wide and uncertain – and, yes, a little afraid - as he gently raises her chin and tilts her face up to his. He can see her pulse trembling in the hollow of her throat, can feel the tension in her body that is not quite a resistance.

He bends his head and brushes a fleeting kiss across her mouth.


	22. Shape of Fire and Gnarlthorn

The briefest of contact, but the sensation lingers sweetly as Gann looks down at her and she stares back at him. She tries to slam her mask back up, and almost succeeds; he cannot quite classify the emotions he sees hiding at the corners of her face. She is still uncertain, a little shocked – or perhaps surprised is a closer word –and very definitely uneasy, but there's something else there.

He wants – oh, how he wants – to take and to give her more, if only she would welcome it... He brushes the back of his fingers against her cheek.

She bats them away. She turns on her heel, away from him.

"I am a fool," she says to herself, only just loud enough for him to overhear as she walks away. "And _weak_."

"Tarva –" he calls after her, but she doesn't answer. The flower falls from her hand as she disappears from the dream.

He reflects on that for a time, leaning back against the Red Tree, as the light dies around him.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Travelling back to the Ashenwood was not the most pleasant journey of Gann's life. There was a lot of silence going around. Okku was uncommunicative, apart from some very vocal relief when they returned to a Rashemen winter, and Kaelyn seemed to have temporarily talked herself out on the subjects of the Crusade and the Wall of the Faithless. Tarva was still talking – but only to Safiya. Whenever he'd tried to join the conversation, he'd been met with an absolutely neutral face and an echoing silence.

Safiya had taken him aside after a couple of days. "Look, I don't know what happened that night, apart from the mask fragment, and I'm not asking for the details."

"I kissed her."

"Gann, I said I wasn't asking!" Then she frowned. "Seriously, that was it? That's all?"

He shrugged. "As far as I can tell."

Safiya ran her hand over her scalp. "Well. Must've been one dreadful kiss."

He let out a heartfelt groan. He was travelling chastely with three attractive women, whose dreams were... difficult. Was that not enough suffering for Gannayev-of-Dreams, without them continually calling him a bad kisser? "Now, don't you start..."

She eyed him for a moment, but clearly decided not to ask. "Anyway." The wizard sighed. "I thought you might like to know... look, Tarva's too self-contained for me to read easily. I don't know what she's thinking, or how she feels, but I know what she _isn't_ , and that's angry with you." Safiya shook her head. "Listen to me, I sound like some village matchmaker."

Not angry, and not hurt, either – otherwise Safiya would have turned him into a small pile of ash by now. He thanked her for the information.

She shrugged. "All this time away from the Academy is making me soft... but I care about her, too."

It had been obvious since the two of them entered his prison cell that the Red Wizard was genuinely attached to the weapon master... but what did she think she meant by 'too'?

-0-0-0-0-0-

On the scoured ground that stank of snow and ash, they met again the thing called Shape of Fire, who had once been a man. With the aid of the condensed orglash essence they'd taken from the bheur, they extinguished his fires; as the final tree went out, it attacked them. Tarva and Okku scrambled free as Kaelyn, Safiya and Gann unleashed every icy spell they knew upon it.

It wasn't quite enough. The Shape of Fire flickered feebly on the ground, its flames reaching out to the charred nearby trees. Tarva laid aside her scythe and approached it.

"Quenched my fires. Brought the ice. Quenched my fires."

"Yes," she said.

"Still I burn. Still I burn. Still I burn."

Tarva shook her head and knelt beside the Shape of Fire, just out of reach of its flames, and holding the jar of orglash essence well away. There was something strange in her face, Gann saw – but then her hair fell forward and hid it. "Peace. All suffering comes to an end. Even yours."

"Yes," Kaelyn said, stepping forward, her wings reaching wide. She began to chant softly, and he could catch Ilmater's name in her words.

"Take my spirit. Smother my flames. Smother my pain."

Tarva simply nodded, and brought the half-empty jar up –

\- and she paused. It rang alarm bells in the back of Gann's head.

"Why –" Kaelyn broke her chant to begin to ask, but Gann was already moving. He was still not fast enough to reach her – and just what would he have done? – before the spirit-eater burst from her flesh and took form, its hunger focused on the smouldering embers of the Shape of Fire. She was stronger now, but so was the Hunger; she shook with the effort of fighting it back. A cry ripped free of her throat – a call for _help_.

It felt as though there was only a moment to react, and he did, wrenching the jar from her and pouring it out over the Shape of Fire, quenching it forever.

The Hunger howled, cheated of its prey. It twisted somehow, turned in on itself and on Tarva.

"Oh, no," Gann said, the words far too simple, far too banal, as he felt that dark, empty mass, deprived of the Shape of Fire, spitefully fix on the nearest convenient target. Not the spirit bear, or even the shaman, but its host. He could feel it feed on her memories, all the hard-won experience that had made her what she was, and it only lasted moments, but there was no telling how much damage it had done before it hid itself again beneath her skin. The half-elf fell, as a tree falls under the axe. Even in her heavy armour, she looked smaller than usual, unconscious, scarcely breathing. Kaelyn hurried to her aid; Okku and Safiya gathered around as the golden light of the cleric's healing enveloped their leader.

Tarva woke. She blinked twice, and couldn't seem to focus her eyes properly.

"Are you in pain?" Kaelyn asked, as Safiya helped her friend to sit up.

"N-no," she answered, as though uncertain of the answer.

"What happened?" Safiya asked.

"Something... wrong," she said.

"When you spared the Shape of Fire, somehow the Hunger turned against you," Gann explained. "It fed on your memories, on your spirit – are you all right?"

"I think... something feels strange."

"The spirit is resilient, and in time, you will regain what was lost from you. All the same, I would recommend that next time, you refrain from such lofty self-sacrifice and simply devour whatever has provoked the Hunger."

"I cannot agree with that advice, hagspawn," Okku rumbled. "The spirit-eater acted with honour."

Kaelyn chimed a soft agreement.

His eyes narrowed. "Our fair leader cannot continue to sacrifice herself to the Hunger to save others from it. She will need everything she has and everything she is to fight this, not to lie down and let it feast on her until there is nothing left but an empty, dreamless husk! Who will keep your promise then, Old Bear?"

"Agreed," Safiya said, looking quite ready to cheer him on, if she hadn't been helping Tarva to her feet.

Tarva nodded as Safiya passed her the scythe. "I'm not doing that again if I can help it," she said, leaning on the wizard and the weapon equally. "Not until and unless the situation is desperate." Neither Kaelyn and Okku looked any more convinced by that than they had been by his words.

"The hagspawn's selfishness is infecting you, little one," Okku rumbled.

Tarva reached out to scratch the giant bear between the ears. "No. He's just right. I am no good to you or anyone else if this curse consumes me." Okku lifted his muzzle, and nosed affectionately at her hand. "I must speak more with you about that, later."

"I wonder why it reacted that way?" Safiya said. They all turned to look at her. She shrugged. "The spirit-eater. You've denied it before, Tarva – the battle with Okku springs to mind – and it did not turn against you then."

They continued into the Ashenwood as Safiya expounded a number of theories, most of which, she admitted, suffered from a lack of data. It didn't stop her discussing them all day. The only good part of it all, as far as Gann was concerned, was that Tarva was speaking to him again. Her face remained resolutely neutral, and there was a tension in her posture whenever he came too near, but the uncomfortable silence had disappeared as though she had never placed it between them.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Is that you, little sapling?"

"Yes," Tarva answered the fallen treant. "Chauntea heard my prayer; I have the cure here."

"You have? Well, place it in the pond here. The other trees' roots will drink from it, and they will be restored."

"What of you, Gnarlthorn?"

"It is not right for me to cheat death, little one. That I survived the draining of my life by the hungry one was an affront to the natural order. I have suffered long for it, but such was my penance, and it was necessary."

"No one should suffer, natural order or no," Kaelyn's soft voice interjected. Tarva nodded.

"I would not expect understanding of how delicately our existence is balanced on the laws of nature from you, little bird. When you are as old as I, and your bark as many ages thick, you will know better. Now, little one, I trust you will tend to the younglings, and I may stop this painful clinging to life."

"Wait-" Tarva said.

"Good night and farewell, little one," Gnarlthorn said. The massive trunk shuddered once, and was still. The half-elf stood looking at him for a moment, as the wind rustled his leaves and lent him an illusion of life, and then she turned and walked upstream.

Chauntea's golden balm poured into the little stream; for a moment, all the water glowed with light, and there was a warm scent Gann didn't recognise. He watched it bring a soft smile to Tarva's face, as she closed her eyes and sniffed deeply. "Orlen's fields. Just before harvest."

They stood there a little while longer, as the trees healed before their eyes. "Well," Tarva said. "The blight's healed. The sanctuary's cleansed. The fire's out. Let's go report back to Nadaj at the garrison."


	23. Nadaj

"This is the first good news I have heard in some time," the masked hathran said. "You must forgive me, but there is one other matter I require you to deal with."

"You made a deal with the spirit-eater," Okku growled, his teeth bared. " _Honour it_."

"I am sorry, but this is something of which I could not speak to an outsider. Even to you, Father Bear," Nadaj said, and offered a half-bow to the bear god. He did not seem mollified. "I will speak plainly. My garrison has been betrayed, and will soon fall. The durthans have planted a spy among us: Dalenka."

Tarva pulled at her hair, as she did when concentrating on something. Her face betrayed nothing of her thoughts. "Why do you think this?"

"It is why my sisters Tamlith and Imsha sent me. I have seen Dalenka sneak into the woods at nights, and the attacks follow her by day. The berserkers die in the forest... this cannot continue. Please, convince them to unite against her."

"Why can't you do it? Why would they believe me, a foreigner, and a spirit-eater?"

"Dalenka watches me. I don't dare." She didn't try to answer the second question, Gann noticed. He wasn't the only one.

Tarva said, "No."

It seemed to surprise Nadaj just as much as it did her companions. Refusing her help was unusual, but when, as the hathran added immediately, it was probably the only way she would be allowed to meet the Wood Man, and when it meant taking the side of the older witch, who'd been rude to them, over the younger one who'd tried to help them, it seemed both uncharacteristic and counter-productive.

Unless he was missing something...

"I talked to Tamlith and Imsha in Immil Vale," the half-elf said. "They had quite a bit to say about you, but the word that stuck in my mind was 'ambitious'. They also mentioned Dalenka. I'd be the first to admit her manner is abrasive – but seeing the damage previous spirit-eaters have done to your sacred forest, she was entirely correct to distrust me. So, no, Nadaj, I'm not going to lead your little rebellion."

"The word of the hathrans is the only law in Rashemen," the masked witch said. "Refusal to obey is punishable by execution."

Tarva's voice was very flat. "As you pointed out yourself, you are only of ethran rank. Dalenka outranks you. I am only here because Sheva Whitefeather, who also outranks you, sent me to speak to the Wood Man. If I go back to her and tell her I could not, because I refused to help an ambitious junior witch overturn her superior on scanty evidence, I'm sure she will forgive me."

Nadaj's eyes, framed by her mask, narrowed noticeably. "That is your final answer?"

"It is." Tarva's hands shifted their grip on her scythe, a small gesture that nonetheless attracted Gann's notice. She was tensed for a fight...

"Then you leave me no choice. Berserkers!" the witch shrieked. "Behold the source of the attacks! This foreigner has brought fire and blight to our sacred forest, and we have paid for it with our lives. Kill her now!"

... and the berserkers came to her call, surrounding them. Tarva shouted orders, trying to get Safiya and him protected, with Kaelyn, Okku and herself standing between them and the onslaught of Nadaj's garrison. She engaged two of the berserkers, clearing a path for him to dart to safety (of a sort, anyway) behind her; as Okku's massive paw swiped out at another berserker, Safiya joined him.

Tarva's voice was barely audible over the ring of steel on steel. "Don't kill! Don't kill!"

An unusual battle-cry, Gann somehow found time to think, but he, like the others, had learnt to trust her judgement. He chose his spells accordingly, and fired them off whenever there was an opening.

At the end of ten minutes, three of the berserkers were asleep, and the others had been knocked out. Kaelyn treated the minor wounds Okku and Safiya had taken, and a few of the major ones the berserkers had sustained.

"Why –"Safiya began to ask, but was interrupted.

"Fiend! Monster!" Dalenka burst out of her little house screaming at Tarva. "What have you done?"

The weapon master shook her head as though it was too heavy for her neck. "Look closer. Your berserkers are not dead, hathran." She explained the circumstances in a few terse words.

Dalenka examined the men, and then accepted Tarva's explanation. "I know you could have killed them, spirit-eater. That you spared their lives, and the healing you have begun in the forest, speaks well of you. Where is the traitor Nadaj?"

"She has run into the forest," Okku spoke up. "I can follow her trail, if you wish it."

"Let us confront her," Dalenka said.

"Us?"

"I will come with you," the hathran said. "And then I will see you safely to the Wood Man."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The glowing figure of a masked hathran waited for them under the summery beech.

Tarva approached her. "Nadaj?"

Beside her, Gann shook his head. The golden light looked impressive, but it was nothing compared to what he could sense. "This woman... she is a shell, a garment worn by the feral instinct of the forest. Ashenwood, I fear, is about to shed this husk, and our blood may soon follow."

"There is no way of recovering Nadaj?"

"We took the ethran. We are the protector. We are the land. We are one," the woman said.

"I take it that means 'no,'" Tarva sighed, and swung her scythe into readiness.

"We were threatened. We burned, we wilted, we yielded to parasites. Those same forces that freed us- they encroached upon us. We needed them gone, and you obliged us. We are grateful. We ask that you remove the remaining threat."

That did not bode well, if he understood the forest at all – he grabbed Safiya and Dalenka by the arms and dragged them away, just as the thing that was not Nadaj added, "We ask you to die."  
Treants and Shambling Mounds erupted from the ground and converged on the three – weapon master, bear, and half-celestial cleric – who remained within the clearing. Tarva went straight for the shell of Nadaj; her scythe cut as easily through the woman as Safiya's Meteor Swarm cut down the treants. Still they kept coming, seemingly endless...

Wait.

"The saplings," he shouted to Dalenka and Safiya, and turned his own spells upon the nearest of them. The wizard and the witch nodded; together, the three of them charred the ring of smaller trees until they stopped producing elementals. That wasn't enough, though; there was still one focus remaining. But Tarva was ahead of them. She must have seen their spells arrowed at the smaller trees, and now her flaming scythe hacked at the thick trunk of the central tree itself. All her allies followed her example.

Finally a shudder ran down from its leaves, through its branches and trunk, and down through its roots, rippling the earth of the clearing.

"Enough!" Gann called, and the three spellcasters rejoined the others.

The golden light of Kaelyn's healing enveloped Tarva. "And now?" she asked the witch.

"Hush, child. Listen."

The wind rose around them, blowing one way, then the other, like... like an inhalation, and an exhalation. Like the very breath of the forest. The normal sounds of the forest – the birds, the rustling branches – all stilled, despite the wind.

"He _comes_ ," Dalenka breathed reverently.


	24. The Wood Man

Gann felt the coming of the Wood Man – a spirit greater than any he had ever encountered before, compounded of every small life, every stone, tree and running brook of the forest. Green-gold light blossomed on the great tree and grew too bright to look at, and brighter still; every member of the little group closed and covered their eyes to protect them.

The light died, and looking down on them was the spirit, in shape like Gnarlthorn, a giant tree, but this one's eyes were wide, brown and lustrous, like a deer's.

"It is him," Okku rumbled, and bent his head as well as he could, paying homage to a spirit so far above even him, a god of bears. Dalenka, too, was curtseying; feeling an unaccustomed reverence, Gann also bowed. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see that Tarva inclined her head in a solemn tribute, but both Kaelyn and Safiya remained entirely still.

The Wood Man's eyes fixed on Tarva, and widened in sudden pain. "WILL YOU ALWAYS BE HERE WHEN I WAKE, DEVOURER OF SOULS?" The deep voice echoed, an orchestration in which Gann could discern the individual notes of birds, or wind and water. The entire forest spoke in one voice, and that voice was the Wood Man's. "GORGE ON MY LIFE A THOUSAND TIMES, AND STILL YOU WILL NEVER BE SATED."

Tarva closed her eyes for a moment, the small gesture betraying her. "I am _not_ here to devour, Wood Man. I seek to end this curse, not to indulge it. I am not one of those spirit-eaters who wreaked such damage upon your forest."

"THE MASK CHANGES, BUT THE HUNGER REMAINS THE SAME. WHY DID YOU DESTROY THE PARASITE AND CALL ME FORTH, IF NOT TO FEAST UPON MY LIFE ONCE MORE?"

"Nadaj..." Dalenka said softly. The Wood Man looked at her.

"THE FOREST'S FURY, MADE FLESH AND BLOOD AND _WILL_. IT SLEW THE SMALL ONES, THE GENTLE ONES, AND CALLED THE FOULER ONES HENCE. SUCH HATRED AND ANGER HAS NO MIND OF ITS OWN. IT MUST FIND A CENTRE, A FOCUS... A _THRALL_. THROUGH HER VOICE AND HER MIND, THE PARASITE, THE FURY, SCHEMED AND AVENGED."

"It prevented your emergence," Gann said, putting the pieces together.

"YES... MY SOUL WAS DISPERSED WHEN THE HUNGER WOKE AGAIN, AND THE PARASITE GREW TOO STRONG. IT HAD TO BE TORN FROM THE FOREST'S HEART BEFORE I COULD ONCE AGAIN TAKE FORM."

"You were too far weakened to fight it on your own," Tarva said. Clearly she had not been far behind him; but then, he would not have expected her to be.

The Wood Man was still. Even the wind stilled for an instant, as though he held his breath. "YES," he admitted, slowly, a little uncertainly. "I WAS... AND AM... TOO WEAK."

"I understand," Tarva said. "And I am sorry." She took a deep breath. "The witches of Mulsantir sent me to you, to find a cure."

"YOU STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE. NEITHER DID THOSE OTHER FACES THAT HID THE SAME HUNGER. THEY CALLED IT A GIFT... YOU HAVE CALLED IT A CURSE... IT IS NEITHER. IT IS YOUR _NATURE_."

Her voice cracked slightly. " _No_. That is not who or what I am."

"IT WAS NOT. HUNGER IS WHAT YOU HAVE BECOME. I DO NOT KNOW HOW YOUR NATURE WAS CHANGED." The Wood Man paused. The massive form bent closer, his eyes studying her. "YET... I SENSE THE WRATHFUL TOUCH OF A GOD ON YOUR SOUL... A GOD WHO IS DEAD."

"A dead god?" she echoed weakly.

Okku, who had been silent beside her, shifted his weight, nudging her. "A dead god nearly killed you in his barrow and outside Mulsantir. A dead god travels with you now. Not all that is dead lies still and rots." Tarva buried a hand in his fur, and leant on him.

"CHAUNTEA, MIELIKKI, LURUE... THESE ARE THE GODS I KNEW IN THEIR YOUTH, WHEN THEY RAN FREE IN MY FOREST. TALONA ALSO I KNOW, WHO SPREAD HER POISON UPON MY TREES, AND MALAR, THE HUNTER WHO TAKES HIS PREY FOR THE BLOODY PLEASURE OF KILLING. THEIR WRATH IS DIFFERENT IN KIND. AN UNFAMILIAR GOD HAS CHANGED YOUR NATURE..."

Tarva nodded. "How can I end this Hunger, Wood Man?"

He let out a gusty sigh, the warm wind smelling of autumn leaves. "YOU CANNOT DEFEAT YOUR OWN NATURE. YOU MUST BE WHAT YOU _ARE_... AND IN BEING, YOU MUST FINALLY SUCCUMB."

Gann shook his head violently, in disbelief. No. No. Not after all this. It wasn't fair – and when had that mattered to Gann-of-Dreams before? - it wasn't right. One so strong, so determined, so beautiful (and this time he didn't bother to correct himself), who had fought so hard and faced so much, should not simply be lost. She had been made a spirit-eater through no fault of her own, and had fought it every step of the way, and now to be told that her doom was inevitable? She stood very still, as if turned to stone. Beside her, Okku's head had dropped in defeat; it seemed the bear god would never be released from his oath.

"There is nothing you can offer us? No hope at all?" Gann found himself asking.

The Wood Man reached down, and the tip of one massive finger gently touched Tarva's head. "TO CONTROL THIS BEAST, YOU MUST DEFY IT. FORCE IT TO ACT AGAINST ITS WILL. YOU CANNOT CHANGE YOUR NATURE... BUT YOU MAY BE ABLE TO FORCE IT TO _OBEY_ YOU."

Her head came up; her dark eyes looked into the Wood Man's. There was no hope in their depths, none at all, for it was not a cure he offered her, but only an added measure of control. Still there was determination. "I will try," she said, and closed her eyes. The black shape of the spirit-eater formed behind her, its tendrils reaching eagerly toward the Wood Man. But there was something different about it this time -

"No!" Dalenka and Okku cried out with one voice.

\- it was leashed by her will. "Wait," Gann said. How was she doing that?

A pulsing cord of light stretched through Tarva, and to the Wood Man. The Hunger howled and thrashed, and Tarva was white with the effort and the pain, but, somehow, she was actually commanding the Hunger – not to feed on the Wood Man, but to restore him with her spirit. A soft blue glow enveloped the Wood Man; the cord snapped and the dark mass disappeared. Tarva swayed, and Gann reached out to steady her – that was becoming a habit on his part. She clung to his arm – almost gratefully – trying to regain her breath and her balance.

"Much that was lost... is restored. The forest breathes again. Its anger fades to silence." The Wood Man's voice, too, faded, until the final words were barely more than a breath of wind. "Thank you..." and he was gone, diffused back into the forest.

Dalenka looked at the half-elf with something approaching awe. "I must return to my berserkers. But... you sacrificed some of your spirit to heal our sacred forest. Foreigner, spirit-eater... we are all in your debt."

Tarva shook her head slightly- a bad move under the circumstances, and Gann helped her catch her balance again. Her voice was hoarse. "I merely undid some of the damage done by previous spirit-eaters. There is no debt. Remember that... remember me."

"I forbid you to be so morbid," Gann said, with a lightness he did not feel, looking down at her, as Kaelyn healed her of the physical damage of the fight, and of the spirit-eater's manifestation.

"Morbid?" she asked, closing her eyes for a moment, letting go of him and standing upright again. "I've just been told there's no cure for this curse, making all those pretty stories of madness and death seem likely – no, I'm not feeling morbid at all."

"Not quite," Safiya said, taking her friend by the shoulders, and looking over her. "The Wood Man thought there wasn't a cure, but what would an overgrown tree know about it anyway? You've done as Sheva asked, so she'll let us talk to Magda now; let's go back to Mulsantir and see if we can learn anything."

Tarva nodded, her face almost unreadable again, which meant she really was feeling more like herself. She looked around at the little group gathered around her. The hagspawn shaman and dreamwalker, the god of bears, the winged priestess, the bald wizard. "Thank you," she said. "All of you."

"Gann's right, enough morbidity," Safiya said. "Don't let it go to your head," she added to him.

"I doubt you could feed his vanity any further," Okku rumbled.

Tarva said absently, "All things are possible."

They trailed back to the witchboat.


	25. Lienna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All sorts of shout-outs and references in the next few chapters. How many can you spot?

"What a charming piece of decor," Gann said, regarding the rough table decorated with restraints and a large amount of dried blood. "This Lienna seems to have had some rather antisocial hobbies."

"We noticed that last time," Safiya said. Tarva was silent, but she was looking at the object with a stony expression.

Okku snuffled deeply. "Little one, that is _your_ blood."  
All eyes turned to Tarva, who was looking very pale, even in the darkness of the Shadow Plane. "Yes..." she said slowly. "Yes, I remember now." Her hand hovered over one of the iron shackles. She touched it –

\- and she was gone. Not physically, but into a dream. Gann leapt after her without even thinking about it...

... and he's in exactly the same place as he's just left. A woman in a hooded robe is bent over the table; her robe is white, where it is not soaked scarlet. Another woman, with bald head and red robe (this one meant to be) blocks his view of the table. He shifts to the foot of the table, and sees something out of a nightmare.

Tarva is shackled to the table, her mouth stretched wide in a silent scream, a massive gash carved down the centre of her torso. The two women pay no attention to her pain; their hands are buried in the scarlet ruin of her chest. Tarva's eyes meet his for an instant, and she recognises him, but then the woman in red lets out a sound of triumph, and does something that makes Tarva's eyes roll back in her head.

The woman in red holds up a blood-stained chunk of silver, and now she looks down at Tarva with more sympathy that Gann expects to see from a torturer. She says, "For love," and the dream fades around them...

... and back in the waking world, Tarva clutched at her chest.

"What happened?" Safiya asked, hurrying to the half-elf's side. "You just froze – and then Gann did."

"A dream," Gann said.

"A memory," Tarva corrected him. She was still very pale, but seemed otherwise mostly unshaken. Gann wished he could say the same for himself. Viewing that had been... unsettling. "A woman in white and a woman in red pulled the Shard of Gith out of me. I had... I had wondered when I lost it."

"The woman in red said it was 'for love,'" Gann told her.

"I didn't hear that part," Tarva said. "I was... slightly preoccupied."

Well, that was one way of putting it, he supposed.

"A woman in white?" Kaelyn asked. "Magda referred to her mistress Lienna as her 'white lady'."

"That would fit," Tarva agreed. "The woman in red... I think... she seemed familiar."

"She was garbed like a Red Wizard," Gann said, and turned to look at Safiya. She seemed rather uncomfortable under his scrutiny. "She looked like you, but older."

"I wonder," she said, "if that was my mother you saw. That might clear up some of the connections here."

Tarva shrugged. "Not much use in idle speculation. Let's keep moving." She led them through Lienna's secret door, into a room with four portals, and a guardian golem.

"I do not like this unnatural darkness," Okku grumbled, as Safiya fiddled with the golem.

"Almost got it. That's Hobb's Equivalency; interesting, Guinle's is much more effective..."

"We are no longer on the Prime, Father Bear," the Dove said softly, ignoring Safiya's mutterings. "The Shadow Plane is a place of twilight and darkness."

"Really? You are, as always, a creature of wonder, Kaelyn," Gann said. Tarva shot him a look, which he returned as innocently as he was able; the priestess was oblivious anyway.

"Ah, got it!" Safiya replaced the replenished spirit core, and the massive clay golem stirred.

"Visitors wait... at the First Door."

"Which visitors?" Tarva asked.

"The couriers," the golem answered. "Who brought you here... from across the world."

"Open the door," she said, the words coming out much faster than she usually spoke. "I'd like to talk to these couriers."

"The seals are withdrawn," the golem said slowly. "The way is open."

Three gargoyles tumbled out of one of the portals. They took one look at the group-

"Hsst! _You!_ "

\- and tried to cower behind each other at the sight of Tarva. Gann would have no problems admitting the weapon master could be intimidating – the image of her in battle with the frost giants flashed through his mind – but that reaction was a little extreme.

"We're trapped, my brothers, ensnared!"

"Please, sweet mistress, have mercy!"

Tarva shook her head slightly. "I've been called a lot of things," she remarked to Safiya, "but that's a first."

"We only did as we were told... we thought you were dead!"

Her eyes narrowed. "Dead? Then you are the ones who brought me from Merdelain? Do you know-"

"Forgive us. We were but slaves!"

"Shackled to our white lady's will." The three gargoyles all spoke entirely alike, and they really were terrified of Tarva.

"We crept across the world, tracking by the scent of your blade. We watched you from the shadows. In your keep, in your war, in the umbral darkness of Merdelain, our eyes were never far..."

"You were there all along?" She stepped forward, swinging her scythe into a battle-ready position; Gann and the others followed suit, not that she needed aid to frighten the gargoyles out of what few wits they possessed. "You were watching while my allies and friends fought and died? Why didn't you make yourself known? _Why didn't you help_?"

The gargoyles shrieked and backed toward the portal. "Our white lady told us to wait! To bide our time until... we are _sorry_ , sweet mistress!"

"When the rocks smashed your bones, we _saved_ you from death!" another protested in its defence. "Had we not borne you away to Lienna and her red twin, you would have ended like your comrades!"

"Her minions. They followed her blindly to their death, like chattel, like willing slaves! I do not pity them-"

Her expression barely flickered, but there was a raw note in her voice as she asked, "My friends are dead?"

"Yes," one of the gargoyles said, almost with satisfaction. "Dead. By now, they must be."

Tarva expelled a long, ragged breath, her head bowed. Safiya and Kaelyn, almost in unison, stepped forward and placed their hands on her shoulders.

"No," another one said. "Only two... perhaps three, were dead. Don't you remember, brothers, how the dwarf chased us and cursed us?"

"Threatened us with his axe," the third gargoyle agreed. "Left your body unguarded."

"Then Khelgar lives," Tarva said, slowly, a little shakily. "I should have known he was too stubborn to die."

"He lived when we last saw him," one of them corrected her. "Merdelain was shaking itself apart."

"What of the others?" Tarva asked. "Who else survived?"

"The _fearsome one_ ," a gargoyle said, and the others huddled behind him and murmured agreement. "He chased us, he did, into the shadow realm, and beyond..."

"And the Red Lady caught him!" another snickered. "If he is not dead, then he's in her hands, and he'll be hoping she kills him..."

"That's all?" Tarva asked. "That's really all you know?"

"There was a dead mage," one of them offered. Gann had given up even trying to tell them apart. 

"Several corpses, but we could not tell if they were crushed by the rocks or slain by your hand."

"I...see. And then?"

"We carried you here. Lienna and her red twin took the blade from your hand, and the shard from your chest."

"At her command, we carried you to the cavern of runes, sweet mistress..."

"We _dared_ not tarry there... it was ancient, it was hungry, and it reached out for us..."

"But it didn't want us, did it, brothers? It wanted _her_."

They spoke to the gargoyles for a while longer, but it was clear that Tarva had lost interest; the mystery of how she came there was solved, they had told her all they knew of her former companions, and some questions had been answered. More had been raised.

And then they said that the whole plan had been hatched when the red woman and the white had returned from a visit to the Slumbering Coven, and immediately Gann started paying attention.

"That circle of hags is involved?" he asked, and didn't notice Tarva stepping aside so he could interrogate the gargoyles more directly. He did see that they were considerably less afraid of him than they had been of her. Then again, he wasn't the one they'd spirited halfway across the world, delivered into the hands of two women who had no qualms about carving living people in half, and then dumped in a spirit-infested hole in the ground to be infected with the spirit-eater curse...

"Yes, kind master!"

"I think I preferred your title," Safiya murmured to Tarva.

"They lair to the east, by Lake Mulsantir," the gargoyle told Gann. "The Lake of _Dreams_."

"In the depths of a city, half-submerged beneath the waters!" another supplied. He was beginning to find their exclamatory speech rather grating.

"The city beneath the waves..." he said to himself. So that was where it was hidden. "I have dreamed of such a place."

"You've mentioned it, too," Tarva said quietly. He had forgotten just how sharp those delicately-pointed ears really were.

"It is clearly our next step to learning the truth of your curse, Tarva," he said. "And I would be... greatly curious to explore this city."

She looked at him, her eyebrows slightly raised, and so intently he felt a little uncomfortable.

"' _Our_ next step'?"

He smiled back at her, with the charm capacity of said smile at maximum. "Yes."


	26. Magda

"Thanks, Magda," Tarva said to the dwarf. After they'd reported the events at the Ashenwood to a trio of very surprised – and considerably more polite – witches, they'd whisked the troupe of actors back to the Veil. Despite being somewhat unsettled by the whole experience, Magda had been more than helpful, telling them what she knew of Lienna, and of the red woman – Thayan, she thought - she'd seen no more than thrice. The conversation regarding the crude operating table they'd found had been a little awkward; the actors all remembered the blood soaked white robe.

" _Your_ blood?" one of the men interrupted. "Magda, what if Lienna... what if we've been harbouring some kind of mad vivisectionist?"

"You hold your tongue! And quit eavesdropping!"

Tarva's lips twitched. "Speaking as the party most concerned, I think she was more of a _sane_ vivisectionist."

"Please don't encourage them," Magda sighed. "It's hard enough keeping this bunch in control as it is. I'll bet Vesper's already scribbling some daft, blood-soaked tragedy that features pulling the still-beating heart out of a person."

The air genasi in question looked up from his loose bits of parchment. "Well, we've already got the perfect prop –"

"No!"

"If I might suggest an alternate theme," Gann said, a pleasing idea blossoming in his head, "I suggest a grand performance of "The Dreamwalker of Rashemen", the story of a wild, unpredictable, breathtakingly-handsome spirit, who wanders the land and the dreams of its people – especially the daughters of farmers ripened into womanhood."

"Well, there you are, Okku," Safiya said behind him. "It is possible to stoke Gann's vanity further. I'm surprised both he and his ego can fit in the same room." The bear shook his ponderous head.

"'Breath-takingly handsome?'" Tarva said. "I wonder why you didn't also mention 'terrifyingly humble.'"

"Oh, no," Gann said, and smirked at her. Finally, an exchange he'd win. "It would hardly have been befitting to boast of humility, would it?"

"Hmmm..." Magda motioned Vesper over. "That might indeed be a play with meat on its bones."

"But one must ask why the dreamwalker wanders." The genasi chewed on the end of his quill. "There must be some motivation, some purpose to his movements."

"Why, for adventure," Gann said. "The siren call of the open road, the thrill of discovery in each dreaming mind..."

Magda shook her head. "A little flimsy. It might do on the surface, perhaps, but we strive for something deeper at the Veil. Our dreamwalker does not seem a being without choices – so why would he not choose some more exotic locale than Rashemen, or some loftier, stranger goal than the mere seduction of farmers' daughters?"

"I don't know..." one of the men said, and sidled up to Kaelyn. The cleric looked at him with mild surprise. "Some of the women around Mulsantir are toothsome morsels indeed."

"Leave the angel alone, you lecherous rogue," Magda snapped.

"Jealous, sweet Magda?" he asked, but desisted.

"I swear, if I take my eye from them for even a moment..."

"Believe me, I understand," Tarva said, and cast a sly look over her shoulder. "This lot is bad enough –"

"Come now-" Gann protested.

"- but the group I travelled with before were much, much worse."

Magda sighed. "Vesper, where were we?"

The playwright lifted his glowing blue eyes from his notes. "Why does our dreamwalker wander Rashemen?"

"Ah, yes," Magda said. "We need something to add to the drama. Perhaps... perhaps he runs from something?"

Now, that was just insulting. " _Runs_? A hero such as he?" Gann could sense, more than see, Safiya behind him with her hand over her mouth and her shoulders shaking. There was a deep rumble from Okku; even the bear was laughing at him. He turned to Tarva, who he'd only heard laugh once and mean it. Surely she would not - well, she wasn't laughing, but there was a spark in her eyes that was almost as bad.

That only left Kaelyn, of his faithful companions, who seemed to have little grasp of humour to begin with, and probably didn't understand that this 'Dreamwalker of Rashemen' was him anyway. He never would have thought her inability to grasp anything more than a surface meaning of things would prove a comfort.

"He does _not_ run," Gann said. They wanted drama? He could provide that. "He is an exile, forced to wander the land." There was a moment of silence, broken only by the scratching of Vesper's quill. Gann could feel Safiya and Okku looking at him and ignored them; the mocking light had died from Tarva's eyes.

"Yes, that could work," Magda said, and the look in _her_ eyes was entirely too knowing, for a moment. "The laws drive him out, and so he wanders, living a life of fantasy and whimsy. The chaos in him rebels against his exile and the laws, the _order_ that demanded it – but what could symbolise such order?"

"A city? A king?" Vesper suggested. "It worked in _Ranger Green-Hood_."

"Which we staged just last month. Besides, I think our dreamwalker would find some comfort in a city. We need something more structured, more confining – at least seemingly."

Really? These thespians had some strange ideas. A town full of narrow-minded, humourless Rashemi sounded about as unpleasant and confining as Gann would be willing to tolerate for any great length of time – and even then, only because he could wander at will through their dreams.

"I think we need something more... intimate," Magda said thoughtfully.

"Ah," Gann said. "Now we are back on track."

"Of course!" Vesper said, scribbling away madly. "I see it now – let's change tack a little. What about a family?"

"We haven't got the cast members," Magda said, as Gann stared at her and the genasi, almost horror-struck. What were they _doing_?

"True... actually, we don't need them. If we use a variant of the Silk sub-plot from _The Godslayer_ -"

"-then we only need one other. Yes, that _would_ work, Vesper. He walks into the dreams of lonely farmers' daughters. He wanders alone. He believes he prefers it that way, but what would he do when someone walks into _his_ dreams and subtly ensnares his heart?"

"He runs from that intimacy, from that confinement, yet, deep down, he seeks it out as well..." Gann ran his hands through his hair in frustration – and the memory of Tarva untangling its knots suddenly intruded. He banished it mercilessly.

"Gannayev?" the soft voice of the Dove spoke up unexpectedly. "Are you all right? You seem uncomfortable."

"Thank you for your concern, Kaelyn," Gann managed to say through gritted teeth. Trust the priestess with the piercing eyes to interject the accurate, obvious observation at the worst possible moment. Okku wouldn't have noticed, and both Tarva and Safiya were possessed of some measure of tact, however small – but Kaelyn was another matter entirely. "I am merely mourning my poor, innocent suggestion, so unfeelingly murdered. Where is the amusement in such a play as these suggest?"

Magda thought about that for a moment. "Perhaps it is not amusing at all. Perhaps it is purely drama, or a tale of deathless romance. It may even be a tragedy. I suppose we'll see."

"I look forward to the performance," Safiya said, a little slyly. "Don't you, Tarva?"

"While I'm sure it will be a credit to your establishment, Magda, and your lead character seems interesting enough- " and that was the mildest compliment Gannayev-of-Dreams had ever been paid – "I've enough drama to deal with in reality without seeking out more."

"How disappointing," Safiya murmured. "Gann, aren't you disappointed?"

Gann refused to dignify that with any sort of answer.

-0-0-0-0-0—

Nightfall found them far from Mulsantir. "Not that I'm complaining, you understand," Safiya said, "but more than one night in a proper bed would have been nice."

"You are soft, Red Wizard," Okku rumbled.

"Oh," Tarva said, and pushed her hair off her forehead. "I didn't think...Why didn't you say something?"

"It matters little," Kaelyn said. "We understand your need for answers is pressing."

Tarva sighed. "Not so urgent that one night's delay is likely to matter. Please mention it next time. Hit me over the head and tell me I'm being a slavedriver, if it's necessary."

"I have already expressed my opinion of such a tactic, given the thickness of your skull," Gann added, as they began to set up camp for the night.

Some time later, when Kaelyn was gathering firewood, Tarva and Okku were deep in what seemed a rather serious conversation. She seemed to be asking something of the bear that he was reluctant to grant. Gann caught the word 'kill', before he took Safiya aside.

"Do you have any ethical objections to casting a harmless – even beneficial – spell on someone without their consent?"

"Gann, I'm a Red Wizard. We don't _do_ ethical objections. What do you need?"

"Do you have a Sleep spell prepared?"

Safiya nodded, and her eyes turned to the half-elf, who was leaning against Okku now. "For her?"

"Yes," Gann said.

"Because you believe she would otherwise refuse to rest, or simply because you wish to walk her dreams?"

"Why not both?" he said. "Why must a person have only one motive for an act?"

Safiya laughed softly. "Well. I shall do as you ask. I do have one question, though."

"What a strange coincidence. As it happens, I find myself in the possession of several answers. I cannot, however, guarantee that I have the one you seek."

The Red Wizard ignored that, and looked at him seriously. "Exiled, Gann?"

Ah. He could evade that question, but to what purpose? They travelled towards the Slumbering Coven and their city beneath the waves even now. He shrugged and gave her the truth. "I believe so."

Kaelyn returned with her firewood, and the evening proceeded much as usual. Okku volunteered to watch the first half of the night. Gann was watching for it, but even so, he didn't see Safiya release the spell. In one moment, Tarva gazed upward at the star-strewn sky; in the next, her eyes were closed, and the subtle tension of one who fought every waking moment was relaxed. Gann followed her into the dream...


	27. The Fearsome One

... she sits on the edge of a bed in a small, dingy room. It is almost entirely characterless, but there are subtle traces – everything is a little smaller than it ought to be. It is a child's room, and she turns a child's leather ball over in her hands. Its bright colours are faded, its stitching frayed; it has clearly been loved, in its time.

"What are you doing here, Gann?" she asks, not even looking up at him.

"I wanted to talk to you," he says, and chooses his position carefully, neither blocking the door nor joining her on the bed. She looks uneasy enough to see him anyway – as far as he can read her neutral mask.

"It's probably just as well," she sighs. "Something the Wood Man said made me think... I probably owe you an apology."

"If anything, I would think that it is my place to apologise, if apology there need be between us."

She opens her mouth and shuts it again, struggling to find the words; behind her, two hazy faces materialise. One is the Wood Man, almost solid, and the other is the sharp face of her foster father. They both begin to murmur. Of the two, the Wood Man's voice is easier to catch; the spirit almost repeats words from their conversation. After that, discerning Daeghun's words is easy; he already knows what they will be.

_Human males are always in rut._

_IT IS THEIR NATURE._

_You will not let them touch you._

_THEY MUST BE WHAT THEY ARE._

"I don't like it," she says quietly, and she doesn't look at him. "But it's true. You and the others forgive me instantly when I act according to a spirit-eater's nature – it was unfair of me to begrudge it when you acted according to a man's."

He sighs. " _You_ are apologising to me for letting _me_ kiss you? How unexpectedly noble of you." How to untangle such a belief? Was it always to be one step forward and two steps back with her?

"Not for a moment," she says. "It should not have happened at all, but I was... off-guard. I am apologising for shunning you because of it. My behaviour was childish and rude, and I ask you to forgive me."

"You are a very strange woman," he says, without reflecting on it.

Her lips quirk into a wry half-smile. Perhaps no other response on his part would have brought her back to herself so instantly. "I've no doubt. But, Gann -"

"Yes?"

She's very serious now. "Please don't do it again. I cannot afford weakness."

He has absolutely no idea how to answer that, but it doesn't matter; the dreamscape blurs around him as she closes her eyes and changes it...

... not something she should be able to do so easily, with such control. Gann studies her, and the shifting dreamscape, and raises his eyebrows at what he finds. Not only does she possess the Dreamer's Eye, but also, now, the Dreamer's Voice. How very unusual...

... the dream steadies, and Tarva is seated at a round table, her former companions in their various places, all looking at a map on the table. There are others here, too; a dark-haired woman in armour and a blonde man wearing a blue tunic marked with a stylised eye. "Knight Captain," the dark-haired woman is saying, "the bridges –"

"Not now, Lieutenant Kana," Tarva says.

"We are at war," the blonde man snaps.

"No," Tarva tells him. " _I_ am at war, Nevalle. And right now, there's something I want to work out."

Gann steps forward; she motions him to a free chair that appears between Bishop and Casavir. Each of her companions looks at him; some with curiosity, some merely register that he is there, and others – Casavir nods politely, and Bishop glares at them both. Interesting, he thinks. He thinks those two would be inclined to sit with something more substantial than one empty chair separating them; is it significant that she places him between them?

"Help me think, Gann," she says. "The gargoyles said that 'the fearsome one' followed them. Who is the fearsome one?"

"Not me," Bishop snorts. "I was long dead by then – you saw to that yourself."  
"Is it safe to assume that all of us who remained true to you–" Qara glares at the speaker, the elf wizard known as Sand – "survived? That those unfortunate gargoyles used the pronoun 'he' advisedly, and that both females and the neuter golem may be discounted?"

"Probably not," Tarva says. "Gods, Sand, I've missed you." She looks around. "Most of you."

Gann clears his throat, a small reminder; she looks at him. "A dream," he says, and she nods, a little sadly.

She looks at each of her companions as she names them. "Elanee, you deserted me at the Mere." A slender wood elf, whom Gann has not seen in Tarva's dreams before, nods, her eyes filled with pain. "Qara, you believed Garius's promise of power."

"Idiot girl," Sand mutters. Qara merely sneers.

"Neeshka..." Tarva says, and looks at the small tiefling. "I am so sorry."

"I didn't want to," she says, her tail swishing. "I would rather have died than betray the only person who was ever nice to me..."

"I know," Tarva says, and the dwarf says something along the same lines. Her voice turns colder than the winds of Rashemen as she calls Bishop's name. Almost every other person in the room, including Kana and Nevalle, and excepting only Qara, regards the ranger with open loathing. He seems to delight in the attention.

"As you've said, you were dead by the end of the battle. I think we may safely discount you."

"And me as well, my lady," Casavir says, a note of pain in the deep voice.

She doesn't look at him as she answers, "Unless you chose to answer Zhjaeve's call to life later, during the time I cannot remember, yes. Although..." she pauses for a moment, "if you had, I think it's quite likely they would consider you fearsome, and that you would have chased them." The paladin opens his mouth to say something, but Tarva cuts him off. "Zhjaeve, Sand, Grobnar, Ammon, Construct, Khelgar, you stood with me. I think we must look for 'the fearsome one' among you."

"They mentioned Khelgar by name," Gann says, remembering he's supposed to be helping.

"Och, and I would've followed ye into death itself, lass."

"I'm gladder to hear that you – probably – survived," Tarva says.

"Know that I do not think I am the one you seek," the yellow-skinned githzerai says.

Red-bearded Ammon Jerro scoffs.

"Sand," Tarva says.

"Hmmm, yes?"

"I don't think it's you, either."

"I would tend to support that conclusion," the elf admits. "While my mastery of the arcane arts is indeed 'fearsome', I think we can safely assume that I would have very few spells left at the end of our battle with the King of Shadows. Despite my affection for you, I am hardly the type to leap blindly into a heroic rescue without any practical means of securing it. It is far more likely that I would turn my efforts to escaping that miserable pile of stone, and then attempt to scry your whereabouts – which, indeed, I hope my living, waking self is doing."

Tarva's mouth quirks up at one corner. "Actually, none of that was my reasoning at all. I merely thought you were far too short to be 'fearsome'."

Sand pinches the bridge of his nose. "My dear girl, while I recognise your lifespan is only a fraction of your mother's race and mine, I nevertheless dare hope you will have time to outgrow that peculiar immaturity of wit that marks the younger races." This confuses Gann; he is still working out whether it amounts to a compliment or an insult when Sand speaks again. "Presumably you will also disqualify the gnome for his height, and not on the surer grounds of his questionable sanity?"

"Grobnar, I don't think you could be fearsome if your life depended on it," Tarva says, almost fondly, to the gnome.

"Probably not," he admits cheerfully. "If I'd got that codpiece-mounted ballista working properly, though – or if the Wendersnaven –"

"We've all heard more than enough about the Wendersnaven," Bishop drawls.

Tarva looks coldly at him. "Mind your tongue, Bishop."

"When you're around to do it for me?"

Gann decides he doesn't like the ranger's tone, and gestures; a neat gag ties itself around the offending mouth, and Bishop's hands are mysteriously glued to the table. Dreams are so convenient that way.

"What a _practical_ idea," Sand says, and almost everyone else in the room seems to agree or approve. Ammon Jerro laughs, a low, chilling sound. Judging from the muffled words coming from behind Bishop's gag, the ranger is much less impressed.

"Let's get back on track here," Tarva says, although she nods her approval to Gann. "What about Construct?"

The massive golem, lurking in one corner of the room, clanks. "Well, he's quite fearsome," Grobnar says, "aren't you, who's a big fearsome golem?"

"Grobnar..." Tarva says, and he stops crooning over the metal construct.

"Well! I've been wrong before, even frequently, but even with the second command word, the one that set him free to choose for himself, I don't think he'd chase you, Lady Tarva. Not after we brought him home."

"Where the word 'home' is interchangeable with 'to the nearest available Illefarn ruin', I take it?" Sand asks, with an exaggerated expression of resignation.

"Of course, Master Sand!"

"Who have we left?" Tarva says. As one – which, in a way, they are, as her dream-constructed memories of them – her companions turn and look at Ammon Jerro, who seems entirely comfortable under their scrutiny. She nods. "Ah, of course. 'Fearsome' would be a very good description, and you know enough of plane-travelling to follow them."

"The question is 'why would I?'" Ammon Jerro rasps. "With the King of Shadows finally defeated, nothing would have tied me longer to your cause."

"What about concern for your well-being, Tarva?" Gann asks. He's somewhat surprised when every person in the room, from Ammon himself, to Grobnar, in their individual ways, bursts into laughter. Even the Construct spins a few of the blades on its hand.

"What?" he asks Tarva, whose lips are pressed very firmly together, and whose eyes are dancing.  
She just waves a hand at him. "Never mind. Let's just say that such a motive would be unlikely for Ammon Jerro."

"So what does that leave you?" Gann asks.

Sand rests his fingertips against each other. "If I may summarise?" As neither Tarva nor Gann protest, he continues after only a moment. "It seems we've more or less concluded that the appellation 'fearsome one', allowing a large degree of error for the somewhat biased point of view of those gargoyles, probably applies to Ammon Jerro, who for some unknown reason, might have decided to follow you. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility, however, that it might instead be Casavir, who possessed sufficient motive and insufficient practicality to pursue you, should he have decided to rejoin the fight at that point." He frowns. "That was a bad business all around. We could have used the extra muscle in that final battle. Honestly, dear girl, couldn't you have been a little less blunt, or even lied to him-"

Tarva jumps to her feet, her chair clattering to the ground, and the dream shatters around her.


	28. Fentomy

"Ugh. I smell corruption – and it isn't you, spirit-eater. It is..." Okku sniffed again, "bloated corpses and twisted spirits."

"The air is thick with evil," Kaelyn added.

"Lovely," Tarva muttered, looking out over Lake Mulsantir, golden in the light of the afternoon sun. "Can any of you hear that? That laughter? Those cries?"

One by one, the others shook their heads. Tarva sighed. "Well, maybe it's just my imagination. I certainly hope so."

Gann couldn't hear them either, but then, he was somewhat distracted. The unpleasant scents, the sounds of the waves, even the way the sand crunched beneath his boots; they were familiar, for he had walked this shore many times in dreams. They were also indisputably of the waking world, and so, _strange_. The outline of a building was hazily visible; the bodies floating in the water, the waving tentacles of vast sea-monsters and lack of a bridge were all, unfortunately, much clearer.

"Perhaps the fall of night will reveal a bridge," he said, slowly. "But I fear... we will not be the only petitioners at _this_ gate."

Tarva turned to look at him. "Gann... are you all right? You've been uncharacteristically quiet whenever someone brought up Coveya Kurg'annis, and now, you sound rather uneasy. I understand something of what this place must mean to you."

"It is said that one cannot go home again," he said. "But for me, this is the first time." Birthed of a hag, abandoned to the wilds of Rashemen, raised by the telthors, wanderer of the land, and now he came knocking on the door of the city of the hags. He didn't know what answers he would find. He didn't know what answers he wanted. He admitted it to Tarva at the same instant he admitted it to himself – "I am frightened, and nothing else in the waking world has ever caused me such trepidation." He went on before she could say a word; he didn't want sympathy, or pity, or whatever else. "I shall persevere, do not worry. By spell and by arrow, I will back you."

He expected her to try and discuss it, but he had forgotten both her respect for others' privacy and her willingness to trust that others knew what they were doing. She simply nodded.

The voice of Safiya, who'd been studying the tottering ruins near the shore, drifted to them. "No, we're not here for the fishing."

"It is a strange fisherman who plies his trade at the Lake of Dreams," Gann said, and they followed Okku and Kaelyn, to see the person with whom Safiya was speaking. He was human, or apparently so; bald, and wearing an objectionable moustache.

"He does not smell of fish," Okku said, in what the bear probably imagined was a tactful whisper. It was neither. "He reeks of soil, of feldspar – of the earth itself."

"That's because he's a dao," Safiya said, and introduced them. "Everybody, this is Fentomy."

The man did not look like an earth genie. "You are cloaked in illusion, like the city? Surely you do not expect us to believe you a simple fisherman. Perhaps you are a greeter, one who welcomes petitioners such as we?"

"I have no interest in deceiving you," the objectionable moustache twitched as the apparently-dao answered. "When visiting more primitive worlds such as this, I typically adopt a form that will not alarm the indigenous inhabitants."

"That's not quite an answer," Tarva said. "Why are you _really_ here?"

"To pass on a warning," he said. "Do not stay here after dusk. The last man who did... well, his journal reveals his fate." Fentomy waved a hand at a small pile of fishing equipment. Tarva picked up the tattered book and Safiya peered over her shoulder.

"Terrible handwriting," Safiya said. Gann watched Fentomy stroll off down the beach.

"I don't understand why everyone keeps a journal," Tarva murmured absently as she flicked through the pages. "Parchment, quill, and ink aren't that cheap, and really, most of everyday life just isn't that interesting. And people seem to write the strangest details in them at the most inappropriate times. Why would this 'fisherman' write in his journal that he's robbing the corpses washed ashore? – nice man, I wish we could have met him – I mean, surely that's the sort of thing you'd remember without recording it."

Safiya chuckled.

"Unless such an activity is inherently detrimental to the memory," Gann offered.

"Possible. Or look at this bit," Tarva stabbed a finger down. " 'Hiding behind a bush as I write this.' Why bother adding that? I'm actually surprised he didn't name the bush or something. Hm, hm, Fentomy told him not to stay past dusk, and he did... Ah."

"'Black swirling eye' that sucked things inside," Safiya read over Tarva's shoulder.

"That does sound rather familiar," Gann said.

"A gate to the Shadow Plane," Kaelyn added.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Tarva led them along the bridge to the city of the hags, Okku pacing beside her.

"I am glad you refused the dao's bargain, little one," the bear rumbled.

"No creature should be enslaved," Kaelyn agreed.

"And there is no excuse for wearing such a beard. Or the moustache of his human guise," Gann said.

Tarva nodded, as if to herself. "So Okku and Kaelyn object on moral grounds, and you on aesthetic ones? At least you're consistent."

"Of course. Would you expect less of me?" He dropped back as Tarva approached the two hagspawns at the gate. He avoided conversation with those of his kind wherever possible, and these guards seemed excellent examples of the average hagspawn: brutish and ill-favoured, and unintelligent to boot. One of them seemed to be trying to explain something to Tarva.

"When Mulv was a B-A-B-Y, he was D-R-O-P-P-E-D repeatedly by his M-O-T-H-E-R to see if he would bounce."

Well, that one could at least spell. How unusual.

"Bounce, bounce! Me bouncy!"

Gann doubted the hag had been driven by pure scientific curiosity. As he could testify himself, the maternal instinct of the race was severely underdeveloped.

Tarva talked the guards into letting her in if she could thin the crowd of petitioners a little, and then withdrew to the bridge.

"Thanks for your help, Gann," Safiya said. "Your eloquence was astounding." Tarva threw her a look.

"As astounding as your tact," Gann answered. "I do not enjoy conversing with others of my species."

"Considering how much you differ from them, I can't say I'm surprised," Tarva said. "I thought... well, when we met both Groznek and you in that prison, I thought you were simply two extremes of the same race, but that's not the case, is it?"

Gann would not have been who he was if he had been able to resist such an opportunity. "No, of course not. I am breath-takingly handsome and gifted with words and dreams alike; such an outstanding specimen as myself is as unique among hagspawn as among all other races."

"You set yourself up for that," Safiya said to Tarva.

"I know," she sighed, and turned away to look at the crowd gathered to enter Coveya Kurg'annis. Her eyes caught on the glowing pack of glowing animals, and she turned abruptly away. "Okku, take Gann and get those telthors away from me."

That was... uncharacteristically sharp. Then he saw the set look on her face, felt the seething of her hunger, and wondered how he could have forgotten.

He followed Okku without another word, as Tarva almost bolted in the opposite direction.  
The animal spirits did not glow with their characteristic blue light in the unremitting grey of the Shadow Plane; they were grey themselves, translucent, barely there. And they felt... wrong.

"The Bear King has left his burrow. How strange," the largest wolf greeted Okku, ignoring the shaman who stood behind him. "Have you come to gorge on the easy meat here? I won't challenge you. There is more here than even my pack can eat."

The bear sniffed, and growled. "What is this nonsense? Why would you behave as vultures and feed on carrion? Where is your pride, o hunter?"

"We do what comes naturally, cousin bear. Why hunt, when there is already meat here aplenty?" Okku seemed to have everything well in hand here. In paw? Gann glanced back over his shoulder. He could not see Tarva and the others.

"Do not call me kin! You are a disgrace to our kind. Wayward, insolent, pup! I will teach you better, by fear or by fang!" Old Father Bear was, rapidly, almost as furious as he had been when they'd faced him outside the gates of Mulsantir. He stood, a massive spirit-figure of fur and muscle, towering over Gann. The shaman swallowed. Even standing well behind Okku, the bear was profoundly intimidating. He'd grown used to thinking of the bear as a useful, if garish, ally, and the way Tarva leant against him and scratched his fur had made it easy to forget that he was a god, and fully capable of tearing off a human head if he felt like it.

He was clearly in the mood to do something of the sort now. "Worthless, corpse-gnawing maggots! Lower your heads and flee my sight!" The pack was indeed cowering. Okku roared, a deep, primal sound of fury, that reached down to the reflexes and ordered them to run; Gann himself jerked a couple of steps before recovering his head, and the pack bolted. "If I catch you, I will tear off your limbs, and shove your own rotting carrion down your gullets!" The bear god dropped to all fours and chased them, the heavy frame capable of surprising speed, but the terrified wolves beat him to the Shadow gate and disappeared into it. Panting, Okku looked about to follow them through and continue his chastisement there; a little gingerly, Gann spoke up.

"King Bear, perhaps you could curb your wrath, and we could return to our spirit-eater ally?"

The pale eyes looked up at him. "You are right, hagspawn." He shambled back down the bridge, and Gann followed.

Safiya stood sheathed in the golden light of Kaelyn's healing spell; Tarva was wiping her scythe clean of blood, black in the greyness of the Shadow Plane. "You were attacked, little one?" Okku asked.

"Uthraki," Tarva said simply, then turned towards the tall figure nearby. "Get out of my head." A pause. "I am _not_ a slave."

"Illithid," Kaelyn said calmly.

Safiya explained it for a somewhat confused Gann and Okku. "He's talking to her telepathically." The silent mindflayer ignored them.

"Yes, I suppose you have a point there," said Tarva.

"I've faced the githyanki before," said Tarva.

"Actually, I escaped several on the way here," said Tarva.

"The Sword Stalkers follow where the silver swords go, and I wielded one," said Tarva.

"Their hatred for your kind outweighs even that duty, you know," said Tarva.

"Hurry, then. If they have tracked me this far, they will not be far behind," said Tarva.

The illithid scurried away. "You convinced him the githyanki were coming?" Safiya asked. "I wouldn't have thought you could lie mind-to-mind with an illithid."

The half-elf shrugged. "Everything I said to him was entirely true. I'm hardly to blame for the interpretation he chose to put on it."

Safiya grinned. "We'll have you thinking like a Red Wizard yet."


	29. The Coven

"That's a change," Tarva said, staring up at the ogres. "I've never been so openly approached for a bribe before."

"Not bribe," the leader said. "Want to sell dumb Kepob." He pointed at a skinny human boy, barely visible, cowering in the corner among the piles of ogre dung. The Dove was almost instantly at his side, speaking softly to the child, as the ogre explained exactly why he wanted to sell the boy, and what he was doing here in the first place.

Gann had winced at the word 'Kepob'. He had a few memories attached to that particular expletive. Tarva caught it, and looked to him for an explanation, which he, slightly reluctantly, provided. "It's not the boy's name... the most tasteful way to translate would be 'dog that eats its own excrement.' I imagine they treat him little better than his namesake."

Safiya grimaced; Okku rumbled like a distant thunderstorm; Tarva nodded and paid the ogre his asking price for the boy. The ogres departed, and they were left with the problem of what to do about the child.

Tarva tugged at her hair. "We can't take him with us to meet the hags – assuming we can get in- it's just not safe. We can't leave him here. Kaelyn?"

The half-celestial cleric looked up. "I have healed his wounds, but he will not speak to me. I believe he is mute," she said softly.

Tarva muttered something under her breath; the words were indistinct and unfamiliar, but the tone was very explicit. "Well. Then I see no alternative, without surrendering our place in this queue. Will one of you take him back to Mulsantir and civilisation? I can't deny the Witches are unpleasant, but they seem to genuinely care for their people – or perhaps Magda would take him in..."

"I doubt an acting troupe would have much use for a mute," Gann said. "And both your answers and mine may lie here – I will not go."

"I wouldn't ask it of you," Tarva said, ignoring the small glances between the others, who had no idea what he'd referred to. "Safiya, you are not suited for working solo."

"Not one bit," the Red Wizard agreed cheerfully. "Besides, like Okku here, I promised to look after _you_ , personally."

The bear grunted. "While I understand your wish to protect the cub, little one, I must echo the words of the Thayan."

Kaelyn rose from her knees, smiling, the child's hand tucked in hers. "I am more than willing to take him – not to the hathran, nor to Magda, but to the temple."

"A gloomy place to condemn a child so young," Gann said. "Would he not have been better off with the ogres?"

"You do not know of what you speak, Gannayev," Kaelyn said, the faintest iron tone underlying her serene voice. "I would not expect you to recognise the touch of a god upon this child, but I do. He is Favoured of Kelemvor, and the temple is the correct place for him. First, they will take him in, and teach him; before long, voiceless or not, he will be teaching them."

"I thought-" Tarva began to say, but Kaelyn overrode her, something that the mild-mannered priestess had never done before.

There was a slightly dissonant note in her soft words. "I am no longer one of Kelemvor's faithful, and I am sworn to destroying the Wall he protects, but that does not mean that I hate him, or fail to understand the good in his tenets. The child belongs to him, and I will deliver him safely to Darovik at the temple. Besides..." and here, Gann saw an expression he would have described as 'sly' if it had appeared on any other face than Kaelyn's, "I will teach him of the Wall of the Faithless whilst we travel; it may be that the words of one of his Favoured may reach Kelemvor's ears where the words of his doomguide did not."

Tarva bent down, and she smiled at the child – a reassuring smile, that looked rather out of place on her normally impassive face. "Will you go with her?" she asked him. The boy's head nodded once, solemnly, and Tarva echoed the gesture as she straightened. "As you wish, then. Safe travel to the both of you; I don't know how long we'll be, but I will look for you at the Veil, Kaelyn."

"Ilmater's blessings on you all," the priestess replied, and traced a sign in the air. The soft, golden glow of the blessing enveloped them; a moment later, the boy did the same, and the silver-grey mist of Kelemvor's blessing swirled about them. The pair were gone before it cleared.

"I didn't like to mention this, while you two – three, I suppose – were busy talking about gods," Safiya said, "but you've just let our healer waltz off."

"I know," Tarva said, "but it was either her or Okku, and she wanted to go. Besides, I've still got a bunch of healing potions and kits, and Gann can pick up the slack."

As good a cue as ever he'd received, and a little bit of tomfoolery would be a welcome distraction from his... concerns about the Coven and his mother. He swept an extravagant bow. "Indeed, fair wizardess, have no fear, for I shall not permit a single scar to mar your delicate skin – my spells will erase each hurt you take before you even feel them, and-" Someone shoved him off balance; an arm in full plate armour caught him before he fell face-first into one of the reeking piles.

Safiya snickered, and Okku said, "You should not have caught him, little one."

Gann looked hard at both of them, as he regained his balance and released her arm. Tarva wasn't in the right position to have pushed him – but had it been the bear or the wizard? Tarva just shook her head, her face entirely expressionless. "Now, now, Okku. It seems as though it is going to be difficult enough to see the Slumbering Coven; I doubt they'd be willing to admit Gann to their presence covered in what I can only describe, under the circumstances, as ogre shit."

"An apt, if inelegant, description," Gann said. "I thank you for your timely intervention."

"You're welcome. After all – as you ought to have considered, Okku, since your nose is far more sensitive than mine – we'd also have to put up with the stench." Her nose wrinkled. "Speaking of which, let's move on."

So they did. The uthraki who waited in the next chamber did not present them with much difficulty, even if they smelt only marginally better. The one after that, though, was full of undead, led by a lich. Just precisely the kind of foe – since foe they proved – that Kaelyn was best suited for fighting. Nevertheless, the vampires among them proved as vulnerable to Gann's Sunburst spell as Count Crowroost had to the actual sunlight. The others found it difficult to dodge both Safiya's summoned sword, and the storm of missiles she sent at them. Tarva and Okku eventually triumphed over the lich, and turned their attention to the remaining few minions.

Gann was chanting the words of a minor healing spell – Okku had borne the brunt of the lich's attacks – when the indifferent voice of the hagspawn guard interrupted them. "So much for Ankriva. I guess that makes you first in line. Doesn't matter, since the Coven isn't seeing anyone. You'll just have to wai-"

"Guard!" another voice called imperiously through the door. Gann's eyes narrowed. A hag. A hag of Coveya Kurg'annis. Just let him speak to her – "Open the door and let them pass."

The withered creature stood between two hagspawn guards, and sneered down her hooked nose at the half-elf and her companions. "Spirit-eater!"

"That would be me, unfortunately," Tarva said.

"The Coven has recoiled from your unnatural presence. You shall not enter here."

Gann pushed past Okku to confront the hag himself. "We came all this way, and you would deny us?" He wanted answers, and she needed them. And this damnable hag chose to obstruct them? "Do you truly speak for the Coven, or is it your will alone that refuses us entrance?"

"Filthy half-breed! Speak in that tone but once more, and there will be bloodshed!" Safiya tensed noticeably at that final word, and shifted behind Okku.

Gann laughed, and gestured at the weapon master, the Red Wizard, the god of bears. "I _dare_ you to act on such words, Coven servant. Now _let us pass_ -"

"Spirit-eater! Is this half-breed your voice, or do you have your own words to say?"

Tarva tilted her head back to stare the hag down. "Gann speaks for all of us. We wish to see the Coven."

"You echo the words of a half-breed? Revolting!"

Tarva's voice was very cold as she told the hag, "I am a half-breed myself. There is no shame in that. What is revolting is the way you treat one who is at least half of your blood."

The hag simply sneered at half-elf and half-hag alike. "The Coven must be protected at all costs. By coming here, half-breeds, you have forfeited your lives, and those of your companions."

"We came to speak to the Coven, not to harm them," Tarva said, her hands shifting restlessly on the handle of her scythe. "But understand me when I say this: if you touch any one of my companions, you will die."

"You are too much of a threat," the hag said. "Your hunger, your conquest over the Bear King, your strength. Your lives are forfeit, but I will not claim them. The Coven will deal with you as with all other dangers and nuisances."

"Wait!" Gann cried out as the hag raised her arms, fingers spread, and Tarva swung back her scythe, readying a strike. The weapon master paused; the hag did not. "I want answers! I want to know of my mother, why I was cast out – _answer_ me, hag!"

The hideous eyes narrowed, but her hands kept flickering. "Oh, that's right. You're _that_ one. I remember now. Well, perhaps your mother will answer your questions. It's more likely she'll simply silence them – and you – when you meet her."

That was the last thing he'd expected, and it took him precious seconds to react. "Wh-"

Then the blue light surrounded them, and took them away.


	30. Again Gann

The light died, revealing dark stone and running water and a powerful stench of carrion.

"Imaskari ruins," said Safiya, examining the walls. "A lot of history here, assuming the hags haven't pillaged everything."

Gann was thinking over what the hag had said. "What did she mean, when I met my mother?"

Tarva tugged at a handful of hair. "Perhaps... that she's down here."

"No dreams, no nightmares! Ah ha ha ha ha!" the harsh voice rang out of nowhere and everywhere at once.

"Little one, we have company," Okku, who had mysteriously come out of the hag's teleportation facing the other way, alerted them to a visibly armed welcoming party. A disparate group: drow and duergar, human and hagspawn, all dressed in tatters of what they'd worn when the hags threw them down here to rot, or what they'd taken from other unfortunates. Their weapons, however, did not look nearly as shoddy.

"Greetings," Tarva said, gripping the scythe handle tightly.

"Get them," one of the duergar ordered.

Gann spread his hands, the warmth of magic rushing through him. He opened his mouth, beginning to chant –

"I refuse to gang up on any more defenceless souls." A human.

"Defenceless?" Safiya murmured. "Us, _defenceless_?"

"I know. But do your best," Tarva murmured back, and if she wasn't trying to hide her scythe behind her back, that had to be the oddest way to grasp a weapon Gann had ever seen. "I think a fight's inevitable, but the more of them who walk out, the better." She raised her voice and addressed the group. "Please, don't attack. We only wished to see the Coven."

The human who'd spoken out looked at them. "We are a little short on numbers since the last time Gulk'aush came to feed-"

"Cowards!" a hagspawn snarled. "The Skein is no place for the defenceless, or those who would defend them!" He raised an axe, and charged; about half of the group followed him. Tarva sprang forward, her scythe-blade blocking the axe's strike; Okku roared, one massive paw raking the face of a duergar who'd decided Safiya looked like an easy kill. Gann chose an appropriate target and loosed an arrow; he would save his spells for healing. The next was in the air before the first found a home; Tarva's opponent looked rather surprised as he toppled to the ground. It was hard to say whether it was the arrow or the scythe that he had found so surprising – or perhaps it was death itself.

"Hardly defenceless!" Tarva's voice rang out. "And if you don't stop attacking us, you _will_ die."

Not that they listened; those who had attacked did so mindlessly, throwing themselves into battle as if they had never expected to survive it.

"Kill them all, one by one by one!" the toneless shrieking came again, curiously apt, as the last of the attackers fell.

"Everybody in one piece?" Tarva turned to them and asked.

Safiya nodded. "Well, mostly. That voice... it's maddening. I think I can feel my sanity starting to leak slowly out of my ears."

Tarva half-smiled, and peered at the side of Safiya's head. "You may be right. Well, Gann? Got any spells to deal with sanity slippage?"

"I'm afraid not," Gann answered absently. Those who had refused to attack them had disappeared, and he was thinking about something they'd said. 'Gulk'aush'. That was not a Common word, or even Rashemi slang, such as 'kepob'. It was – it was –

"I'd settle for something to block my ears," Safiya sighed.

Tarva led them past the bodies. "Let's see if we can't find a way out of here... I doubt that human knows an exit, but he at least knows more about this 'Skein' than we do. Can you track him, Okku?"

The bear god wrinkled his nose. "I am _not_ some tame hunting dog, spirit-eater."

The weapon master ruffled an azure spike of fur. "No, of course not. Your sense of smell is far superior to theirs."

Okku laughed, a low, rumbling sound. "Save your flattery for the hagspawn, little one. I am not nearly so susceptible." Nevertheless, Old Father Bear seemed mollified; he sniffed at the ground. "This way."

They followed him into the darkness of the Skein. The bear set a slow pace; he explained that there were many different scents to detangle. Safiya gawked openly at the Imaskari architecture; words passed between them all at random intervals, interspersed by the cacklings of that voice which sounded from the air.

"Gulk’aush..." Tarva mused. "Who or what? That man implied it ate people."

"Probably a who," Gann said. He'd placed the word - it was hagspeak.

She looked at him. "That's a name?"

"Of sorts, I suppose. You could translate it as 'lawbreaker' or 'lover'."

Tarva frowned slightly. "I wouldn't have thought those two were particularly similar in meaning."

"That depends," Safiya joined the conversation.

"On-" Tarva began.

"Eyes shut, eyes not, I'm not awake, asleep, asleep, a dream, a dream, a dream..." the voice chanted.

"On what?" she continued, when it had died down again.

Safiya rubbed her scalp. "Well, linguistic theory isn't my strong point, but it depends on whether 'lawbreaker' and 'lover' are actually two different words in hagspeak that happen to sound the same – like 'horse' and 'hoarse' in Common-" and she spelled the words for them, to make her point clear – "or if they are actually the one word. Do you know, Gann?"

"I am not... very familiar with the language," he said. That was one of the natural consequences of not being raised by his mother, among other hagspawn; he had only a smattering of hagspeak, and had never attempted to learn more. If they didn't want him, he didn't want them, either. Well, that had been the theory, anyway.

Insane laughter echoed through the hallways; Okku raised his head and snarled. "It feels as though it is laughing at us. I would gladly silence that voice with my teeth!"

"Peace, Okku," Tarva said. "You may yet get the chance. Until then, think of it as a particularly annoying bird." The bear grumbled, and led them onward.

"I believe... I am not sure... it is only one word," Gann told Safiya.

The wizard nodded thoughtfully. "Then they could very well mean the same thing, if the act of law breaking was to love."

Gann puzzled his way through this, and shook his head. "Hags know nothing of love."

Tarva looked over her shoulder at him for a long instant. "I wouldn't be too sure. They have a word for it, after all."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"When they come, kill each one! When they die, stack 'em high! When I'm through, eat them too!"

Gann could only listen to that insane, meaningless ranting for so long, and on the other matter that occupied him –his mother – he'd been thinking in circles, and getting no further. Not that it mattered; he did not really care either way.

No.

He could hide the truth, or deflect prying eyes away from it with arrowflight after arrowflight of extravagant words and misleading half-truths, but he was not, in the end, very good at lying.

Least of all to himself.

He'd spent his whole life in a sort of uneasy mental avoidance of the subject that troubled him now. They travelled now beneath the lair of the Slumbering Coven, in the city beneath the waves that had called to him in his dreams as long as he could remember. There was no more time for evasion, particularly if Tarva had read the words of that hag correctly, and the mother who had exiled and abandoned him waited somewhere in this labyrinth.

It was not that he felt some sentimental longing to know of her, or, for that matter, of the man who had begotten him on her. He did not even really hate her - at least, most of the time. There was fear, of which he had spoken to Tarva on the lakeshore. There was the smouldering resentment, coupled with an odd kind of hurt, never entirely extinguished and rarely openly acknowledged, which had accompanied him from the first moment he realised his place in the world. Curiosity, another constant companion, and anticipation at the prospect of finally satisfying it, and, lurking beneath it all, as though ashamed, a small hope. He pushed that one further down; he had learned long ago its futility.

The whole of it massed into an uncomfortable, near paralysing ambivalence, and he was still no farther forward.

"Bite off the bone, suck the marrow! Bite off the bone, suck the marrow!"

Gann cast about to find something else to think on, as Okku yawned, revealing all his teeth. The bear had little patience, and had drained most of it in the time Safiya and Tarva had been fiddling with a strange Imaskari device. They seemed to be satisfied now, and the small group set off again into the darkness of the Skein, Okku picking up the trail again.

Tarva. Another enigma. If the calm, neutral face she presented to the world was a still lake, there seemed to be always something else waiting to break the surface. The experiences, the people who had made her as she was – they showed themselves, if you were watching for them, as Gann had been, and they disappeared again, leaving only brief ripples behind. But they were still there in the dark water, along with everything else that remained hidden.

Her dreams, especially that long nightmare sequence, had shown him some of the depths. They fascinated him, dreams and depths alike. That latest one, for example – why had she reacted so badly to Sand's words? Admittedly, they had been less than tactful.

But she had constructed that entire dream herself; her companions had been built on her memories of them. Sand's words – and anything said or done by any of her companions – could be only a reflection of her own thoughts. She could not be surprised by them, except in the mild way one was occasionally surprised by something that surfaced from one's subconscious. The best explanation he could think of was that the words her dream-Sand had spoken reflected something she did not care to think about, or perhaps that she had only just admitted to herself...

"Dear girl, couldn't you have been a little less blunt, or lied to him?"

She hadn't been particularly blunt, Gann thought, replaying his memory of her dream, which had been shaped from her memories. Filtered through that many layers of understanding, it was more than a little hazy, but he could recall what she'd said in response to the paladin's declaration of love.

"Casavir, the words you have said... forgive me. I cannot."

When she'd said them, they had sounded like a more tactful version of "I do not love you," and so Casavir had taken them. Gann had, too, at the time. Now, though, he found himself wondering. Stripped of the hesitancy with which she had voiced them, and the charged atmosphere in which they had been heard...

At the simplest, most literal level, she had said not "I do not love you," but "I cannot say the words 'I love you'", which was entirely a different statement. And given what he'd surmised – and heard – of her foster-father's influence, that was perhaps... the correct interpretation.  
So what did that mean? And why did he care?

Well, she was a _friend_ – and that was something Gann had never possessed. Among the spirits who'd raised him, there had been some he was closer to than others, but they were too fundamentally different to call each other friend. Among the Rashemi, he was outcast; they simply did not trust hagspawn, even one as handsome, charming and witty as he. But the stranger from across the world – ah, she had no preconceptions or prejudices against his kind, and from the first moment they'd met, had treated him as an equal.

More than once, he had caught her when she'd fallen. He had killed _her_ attacker, even when she clearly had the matter under control. He didn't think of her simply as a cursed, dangerous spirit-eater. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd seen her only as a woman to be bedded – and he hadn't even realised it, until now.

There was a niggling feeling that there was something else... he took one mental glance, decided he didn't like it, and pushed it back down. Nevertheless, it left echoes.

He felt –


	31. The Sleeper

-a dreamer. A dreamer of such power that although he was awake, he could taste the strength of her dreams. The sensation shook the clouds of reverie from his head, and Gann realised he'd absolutely no memory of the distance between where they'd entered the Skein and where they were now; no memory of how long he'd traipsed along behind Okku and Tarva, lost in his own thoughts. By himself, such an uncharacteristic lapse would surely have been fatal – but he'd come to trust the strange group Tarva had collected around her.

Trust?

Well, yes, but he was thoroughly overdosed on honesty for now. He barely felt like himself.

Tarva and Okku were talking to a man; Gann looked around those gathered in the little room. More exiles, like those who had first met them, and all of them male – at least, the kinds he could recognise. He wouldn't answer for the gnoll. He stepped past Tarva and among them, searching for the dreamer. It was surprisingly difficult, searching by his sense of them alone; they were simply too powerful to pinpoint, like trying to find the centre of a fire when you stood among the flames. On a more practical note, however, all of the exiles seemed perfectly awake and aware – he simply had to find the sleeper.

"As Levin said, you would be _most_ welcome among us," the apparent leader of the exiles said, looking at Tarva and Safiya. Gann raised an eyebrow, overhearing. That had sounded less like a friendly greeting than a proposition. Ah -

"We've no intention of staying down here," Tarva said. "We're going to find a way out."

"There's only one way out of the Skein, and that's death." The man sounded near to panic. "Please, you mustn't go wandering. It's far too dangerous. There's elementals and spirits everywhere, and at the centre... the mad hag."

"We'll just stay well away from the centre, then," Tarva said.

Within a niche of the wall, on a bed of mouldering scraps of once-bright fabric, a woman with dusky skin lay. Her eyes were closed, and she was utterly still, in a way that transcended mere sleep and approached death. Only the subtle rise and fall of her ribs betrayed her as living.

"But she doesn't stay there! She ventures out to kill and feed on flesh!"

Gann knelt beside the woman. She was probably the dreamer, but to be sure, he reached out and his fingers brushed her forehead. The power of the dream he touched overwhelmed his senses for a moment – an icy burning, a mad babbling, acrid and sour in his nose and mouth alike - he jerked his hand back.

But the damage had been done.

"This mad hag, is she Gulk-" Tarva got no further, as the cry went up.  
"Sacrilege!" One man raised the alarm, but others joined him in roaring out the word again. "Sacrilege!"

"What?" Gann was rapidly on his feet and looking for an exit, or at the least a way to evade the three burliest men of the exile camp who rushed him. He didn't find one before they grabbed him. Rather painfully. It wasn't the first time he'd been on the wrong side of a lynch mob, but it was the first time he'd had absolutely no idea _why_. That wasn't the problem, though; the bit that had him worried was the large, sharp knife the other hagspawn had to his throat.

"Not so close, I hardly know you," he said. None of them took any notice; it was barely audible over the baying of the group anyway.

Safiya had frozen in the middle of a half-formed spell when the hagspawn pulled out the knife, Okku was growling, a low, continuous sound, and Tarva's scythe flashed as she turned on the leader. "What is this? Release Gann immediately."

He shook his head, the chill light of fanaticism in his eyes. "The Sleeper is a goddess in mortal form. For a profane hand to touch her is sacrilege, and its punishment is death."

Ah, he'd touched the wrong woman. That _was_ a fairly familiar situation, even if there were very few male relatives, even in Rashemen, who'd take it quite this far on so little provocation. He would have shaken his head, if it weren't for the sharp point of that knife. Well, he appreciated paradox, and it was a simple fact that there was nothing like being threatened with immediate death to make one feel alive. He'd been in tighter spots before, even if an example didn't immediately spring to mind; while _he_ wasn't going to make the slightest attempt to cast a spell with a sharp knife resting against his jugular - for once, he wasn't alone.

He raised his eyebrows slightly at Tarva; a gesture that was intended to ask: "You are going to get me out of this?" Her head inclined a fraction of an inch.

"Don't be so hasty," she warned the leader. Her face was as impassive as always, but her eyes were very wide, and she looked more often at Gann than at the man with whom she was speaking. "Gann is under _my_ protection. Release him now and let us depart in peace, or you will all pay with your lives."

He merely shrugged. "We serve the goddess above all others, for she has spoken to us of a place by her side in the Wall of the Fey Thiless, in the City of Fudge Mint." Fey Thiless? If the man was attempting to speak of Kaelyn's Wall of the Faithless, it did not seem a fate to be welcomed.

Had he expected logic from a man who apparently worshipped a dreaming woman in a trance?

"If we should die for trying to avenge the sacrilege of her sacred body," the leader continued, "as glorious martyrs, she is certain to welcome our souls and treat us kindly." He nodded to the hagspawn, who shifted his grip on the knife; the point dug into Gann's skin, and Tarva and Safiya cried out 'Wait!' in unison.

They exchanged glances, and it was the Red Wizard who spoke. "This woman is a spirit-eater. If you kill her lover -" and that very nearly caught him off-guard; he hoped Safiya knew what she was doing. Tarva's face barely flickered. "- she will devour the living souls from your bodies. There won't be enough for your precious goddess left to honour."

"A spirit-eater? That's just folklore," the leader scoffed. Some of his followers looked a little more dubious.

"No, it isn't," Tarva said, and he felt the Hunger rousing to her call. The massive dark shape burst from her, its tendrils reaching out to brush over the people in the room. Gann felt its dark touch, its emptiness, and it chilled him to the core.

If that didn't convince these maniacs, nothing would.

Safiya was staring the leader down; Okku had backed off, as the most logical and tempting target for the Hunger; Tarva stood in front of it, fighting to keep it under control. There was silence and stillness, broken only by the hoarse sound of her gasping breaths.

The leader's eyes narrowed. "Mage-trickery, Thayan. Kill him."

There was an instant of blazing pain, and Tarva's outraged shriek was the last thing Gannayev-of-Dreams heard before he died.


	32. Again Spirit-Eater

The first thing Gann knew, afterwards, apart from a fading memory of... grey?... was a woman's soft voice.

"Gann. Gann, please. Please come back." Cold stone under his back and the scents of blood and death heavy on the air.

Strength and health flowed into him, along with the sense of a familiar presence; yawning, endless hunger, caged and resentful, forced to act against its nature by an adamant will. It moved within him, almost uncomfortably intimate in a way that had nothing to do with sexuality, and everything to do with how vulnerable and open to him that presence was. It felt as though he could simply reach out and draw all that offered, abundant spirit energy into himself, and with it, everything that formed or made that presence what it was. All it – no, her – secrets -

Memory returned; with a rush of pure panic, Gann forced his heavy eyelids to open and tried to move unresponsive hands to his neck. He distinctly remembered that hagspawn carving a great gaping _hole_ in his throat -

Tarva's face hung over him, haloed by an odd blue glow, and shadowed by the form of the spirit-eater; her eyes were closed, fierce concentration in every line of her haggard features. "Come on, Gann, please," she murmured – no, she was begging.

"Tarva." Safiya's voice.

The half-elf opened red-rimmed eyes, and saw Gann looking up at her. "Oh, thank Chauntea." Sheer, unadulterated relief flooded her face – for _him_ – the blue glow died, and the dark shape of the sprit-eater vanished. "I wasn't sure that would work."

"What was that, exactly?" His voice was hoarse and rasped uncomfortably in his throat, but that was much better than the alternative. Finding himself strong enough now, he sat upright, and then fumbled at his throat. No wound, not even a scar. But he remembered. "I... wait... I was _dead_." Not the only one in this room; the floor was strewn with bodies. The dreamer was the only living creature in the room who hadn't come in with Tarva.

"Yes," Tarva said. "Gann, I'm so sorry."

Gann recalled the soft azure light that had surrounded her, what he'd sensed, and frowned, realising what she must have done. How a weapon master who couldn't cast divine or arcane magic to save her life – more to the point, to save _his_ – had called him back from the dead. "You channelled your spirit into mine? As you did for the Wood Man?"

Tarva nodded, something raw and painful showing through the cracks in her mask. "I didn't see how it could work, but... but I had to –" she paused for a moment, and looked away from him. "And then I could see that it was working, I could see your wound healing, but I... I didn't think you were going to come back."

Oh. Of course. After Casavir, a man driven by duty, had died in battle and refused to be resurrected, mere days after both professing his love for her and vowing to stand at her side – after that, how could she ever have believed that Gann would be willing to return? Especially as she already considered him less than entirely trustworthy?

He shook his head. It took an inordinate amount of effort to summon a small smile to play around the corners of his mouth. "Not I, Tarva. Life is too sweet for me to relinquish it willingly." Then, softly, for her sharp ears only, but with a depth of feeling that surprised him: "I am _not_ Casavir."

Her dark eyes sprang to his – that had surprised her. It was a moment before she responded. "Even if the blue skin and the fact I met you in a jail cell hadn't tipped me off, that was still evident." The words were light, her voice was soft, and her eyes were serious. She levered herself to her feet, using her scythe to aid her, and stretched down a hand to help him up. Noticing for the first time the blood (his blood) that soaked his leather armour, Gann took it. Nor did he release it after he was steady on his feet, not for a long moment.

"No dreams, no nightmares!" the harsh cackling of the mad hag broke the silence.

"What happened there, anyway?" Safiya asked, picking her way between the bodies to stand beside them. "Not your resurrection, Gann, I followed that – glad you're not dead any more, by the way – but why did they kill you in the first place?"

"The woman who lies there – she is far more than she seems. I have never encountered so powerful a dreamer. Her mind, her dreams... they are whirlpools I would not venture to navigate, not without an anchor."

"As you anchored me at the Wells of Lurue?" Tarva asked, leaning against Okku.

"Very like," Gann nodded. "Except that I would need another dreamwalker, since –" he was about to embark on a proper, if technical explanation, but there was a small sound from Tarva, and he turned to see her fighting for breath.

"Little one?" Okku rumbled, with a concern they all shared; Safiya and Gann were instantly at her side. Gann summoned a healing spell, although she didn't seem wounded; it didn't make any difference to that rasping, awful sound, as Tarva choked and drowned on dry land. He _hated_ it: the three of them standing around helplessly while she suffered, with no idea how to help.

After an endless time, it passed. "Sorry," Tarva muttered.

Safiya aimed a light cuff at the side of her friend's head. "Don't be an idiot. What happened?"

"Spirit-eater," she said, a little hoarsely. "Dangerously low, I think." She looked at them, and something flickered in her face; Gann felt the seething of her Hunger, darker and stronger – then she bolted. To the other side of the room, and Safiya and Gann both started after her. Her low, venomous words froze them both in place. "Damn you, Safiya. Damn you and your _stupid_ bluff to the Nine Hells and back."

The shock – and hurt – on Safiya's face was something Gann hoped never to see again. She asked, "What, because I said Gann was-?"

"No!" Tarva's hands were clenched into fists; she refused to look at them. "Because you threatened them with the spirit-eater!"

"It's part of the legend," Safiya protested. "That a spirit-eater can consume souls. They had to have heard it – I thought it would frighten them. After meeting you, I thought it was only legend –"

"No," Tarva said, and now she sounded suddenly weary. "It's true. I can sense you now. As targets. Food. Oh, hells." As though her legs simply refused to support her any longer, she sat, back to the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest, her face in her hands. "Gods," she said, her voice muffled. "Just when I thought I could – Safiya, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. You weren't to know."

"Hush," the Red Wizard said, almost instantly beside the half-elf, and, rather awkwardly, patted her plate-clad shoulder.

Okku, who hadn't moved an inch before, shambled over to Tarva, and nosed at her hair. "Well, little one, I may not be the only one of your companions who has cause to fear your hunger now, but I still trust to your mercy."

"While I dislike agreeing with our esteemed furry eyesore, I, too, trust you," Gann said. "You have never yet devoured a spirit when you were determined to spare it. Besides, you are hardly the kind to undo all your good work."

She raised her head, mask in place. "What _are_ you talking about, Gann?"

He smiled at her and replied smoothly, "You are far too efficient to sacrifice your energy to bring me back from the dead and heal a most unattractive gaping wound if you intended simply to devour me afterwards." Gann probed at his throat and donned a thoughtful expression. "I believe that the moral of this little interlude is 'next time, we don't go anywhere without Kaelyn'. She can heal and resurrect without you sacrificing your precious spirit –" and that was said without even a modicum of sarcasm or mockery, which he hastened to counterbalance – "and if she were here, I could look into her eyes and reassure myself that my skin remains unmarred. Granted, a scar or two would perhaps add a certain rakish charm to my rugged good looks..."

Tarva just shook her head. "Gann-the-Incorrigible-" and anything she might have added was lost as that shuddering airless fit seized her again. Safiya put an arm around her shoulders; Gann shoved Okku in the shoulder – not that he could budge the bear, but perhaps he'd get the hint, Gann needed the room to work – and summoned the largest, strongest elemental he could.  
Instantly, Tarva's curse responded, reaching out its dark arms. It was stronger, Gann could tell; more, it wasn't as intent on the elemental as it was on him - or Safiya, who paled as she felt its touch. A strangled sound tore from Tarva's throat, as she forced herself to consume the elemental, the least tempting target in the room.

There was silence, afterwards, at least until Tarva looked up at Gann and gravely thanked him. Safiya picked up the club the gnoll exile had been using and turned it over in her hands as he and Tarva debated what to do about the Sleeper; as there was, really, nothing they could do, they moved on.

Deeper into the Skein.


	33. Again Fentomy

They wandered through the endless twilight depths of the Skein, where the 'minutes' were the irregular intervals between the repeating cackles of the mad hag, and the 'days' were as long as it took to find a place of relative safety to rest after Gann ran out of spells. He had counted about eight of the 'days' since they'd been thrown into the Skein, but there was simply no way to tell how long that actually was. His best guess was about half a tenday; their 'days' were extremely short. The Skein was so full of strong, hostile elementals, telthors and humanoids that Safiya's prepared spells would only serve for one or two attacks, and nobody even entertained the idea of venturing onwards when Gann was out of healing.

Everything they encountered seemed almost mindless. Probably, as Safiya had suggested, the maddening sound of the ranting hag was responsible. Safiya and Okku grumbled about it frequently, while Gann did his best to ignore it, and largely succeeded. Tarva, on the other hand, seemed to listen to what the hag said, often muttering to herself and tugging at her hair. If he hadn't been familiar with how she behaved when she was thinking hard about something, he would have feared for her sanity.

Well, he couldn't help doing that a little anyway. After the initial shock of discovering she was perfectly capable of devouring the souls of any of her companions had dulled somewhat, she had seemingly distracted herself by trying to make some sense of the hag's words. She was at it now. "Gulk'aush. Lover and lawbreaker. 'My love'. 'My son'. 'Gone to rot in the sun'..."

Gann raised an eyebrow. "I don't understand how you can listen to that."

Tarva shook her head, a half-smile curving her lips. "Gann, I once listened to Grobnar sing a three-hour lullaby to a lump of green putty. He believed it was a baby orphaned gelatinous cube, named it Norman, and tried to raise it in his armpit. Believe me when I tell you that this hag's rantings don't even annoy me. Besides..." and now she was, suddenly, deathly serious. "Gann, I think they're important. I think, maybe-"

"Tarva!" Safiya's voice rang out from ahead of them; she and Okku had rounded a corner and were out of sight. He and Tarva automatically quickened their step. The wizard hadn't sounded surprised, or distressed – besides, if they'd been attacked, she would have been calling out a spell rather than a name.

Safiya was leaning against an archway. When she heard them approach, she stopped looking into the room beyond and turned to look at them, her eyes dancing. Okku grunted something he probably meant as a greeting. "I think I've found that earth elemental that Fentomy wanted us to kill for him. Tarva, it's the biggest, oldest elemental I've ever seen!" She stepped back, allowing Gann and Tarva room to peer in.

It was impressive, Gann had to agree. The elemental resembled nothing so much as a mountain on small, stubby legs. Ridiculously oversized, it stood immobile within a flurry of turquoise light: a binding spell, but not of a kind with which Gann was familiar. It was sophisticated, orders of magnitude beyond either the crude attempts his witch-warden had made to contain him, or his practised tampering with those wards. It was slightly familiar – ah. When they'd reactivated that Imaskari device with (Safiya's instructions) the lever taken from that gnoll, a globe filled with fresh blood mixed with a strange residue from an air elemental, the machine had triggered a very similar spell.

This spell was much stronger, of course; the air elemental had been relatively weak, and this earth elemental was the most powerful of its kind Gann had ever seen. The spell also differed in nature, being intended to cage earth rather than air, and in purpose. Both he and Safiya were uncertain exactly what the air elemental powered – something to do with water was their best guess, and using an air elemental to do that was highly unusual, and didn't make much sense – but following the lines of turquoise light, it was very clear why the earth elemental was bound here. They danced around the elemental, binding it in place and drawing power from it, power which was then carried into the walls and dispersed through the ceiling, in a pattern like the roots of a tree...

"It's holding the place together," he spoke his conclusion aloud, and was pleased to see Safiya nod. He bargained with spirits, he didn't bind them. That was her area of expertise.

"If it were freed or destroyed – or devoured, I suppose," Safiya added, "at best we'd shake the place around a bit."

"And at worst?" Tarva was absently scratching behind Okku's ears; Gann smirked when he saw the bear's eyes were closed, just like any old wife's pet cat.

"We'd bring the whole thing down on our heads," Safiya said.

"Hmmm. Fentomy," Tarva said.

"What?" Gann couldn't see a connection there at all. He supposed he ought to be used to the fact that both she and Safiya were more intelligent than him by now. Well, he was more attractive than both of them put together, so there.

"I don't know much about dao as a race, and even less about Fentomy specifically," Tarva said. "But when he asked us to kill the elemental for him, he never mentioned the possibility of the building collapsing on us. I can think of three reasons for that. First –"

"Oh, my love, my love! Your flesh stuck in my teeth, my love!"

"Hmmm, that's interesting," Tarva said, as the hag's voice died away. "'My love'. Flesh, teeth. Eats mates alive."

"You were talking about Fentomy," Safiya reminded her.

"Oh, yes, that's right. Well, first scenario: he's trustworthy, and he didn't say anything about it because it's not a risk. Second: he's scum, and didn't warn us because if we get killed, he doesn't have to pay us."

"You were too salty, too salty, my love! When I belch, I still taste your sweet perfume, my love!" 

The last words, a grief-stricken wail, set Gann's teeth on edge. It really was much easier to ignore that insane babbling in battle.

"What's the third possibility?" he asked.

Tarva shrugged. "We cut him off before he could mention it."

"So you're saying we don't really know," Safiya said.

"Unless anyone knows enough about dao to draw a conclusion there, yes."

Gann shook his head, and Safiya frowned. "Nothing solid enough to risk our lives on."

"Right," Tarva said. "How about this, then? We keep moving, and see if we can't find a way out. If there's absolutely nothing else, we come back here, Gann and Safiya cast every protection they can think of over us, and we take our chances with the structural integrity of the building."

"I do not like it, little one," Okku said. Gann closed his half-open mouth; the bear had beaten him to it.

Tarva shrugged one shoulder. "I can't say that I care for it either. The last time a ruin of an ancient civilisation collapsed on top of me, I only survived because a couple of vivisectionists had plans for me. Not a sequence of events I'd particularly care to repeat – but if that's the best we've got..."

"... then let's hope it isn't," Safiya said. "In the meantime, I think we'd better take precautions. It's a wonder some maddened exile hasn't already triggered the machine – I'll see what I can do with it. Come, Kaji." The Red Wizard and her homunculus went down the steps, crossing the tiled floor; mildly curious, Gann trailed after them. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw that Tarva hadn't budged an inch, and her face was more than usually set.

Safiya was muttering to herself. "Azzimauf's Constant, of course, with... oh, how curious. Kaji, listen. This is very important."

"Yes, Mistress?" Kaji croaked.

"I want you to remove this lever," she touched the large, heavy rod set in the machine, a perfect match to the one she'd used to trigger the air elemental's cage, "without changing the direction in which it points. Is that clear?"

"Absolutely!" The little creature set to work, prying around the base of the lever.

Safiya caught sight of the less-than-enthused expression Gann was perfectly aware he was wearing. "What are the chances he'll flip that lever, switch off the machine, and bring this place crashing down around our ears?"

"I have faith in Kaji," Safiya said. "I do good work, and he's the most advanced I've ever –"

The lever came free with an audible click. It slipped free of Kaji's small, three-fingered hands, and Gann caught it; Safiya bent over to examine the slot in which the lever had rested. "Ah," she said, with every appearance of great satisfaction.

They rejoined Tarva and Okku, Kaji babbling about his great victory over the lever to anyone who would listen – which was nobody at all. Safiya was smiling. "I think there's a way out. You see, the Imaskari were obsessed with prime numbers. They used them everywhere – in their architecture, their magical theory, their golems –"

Tarva held up a hand. "Safiya, by that glint in your eye, you're about to embark on either a long technical explanation, or an extremely detailed chain of reasoning."

"A combination of both, actually," Safiya admitted.

Tarva nodded, a smile lurking at one corner of her mouth. "I trust both your scholarship and your logic, so just give me the conclusions."

"All right," the wizard said, but looked a little miffed anyway. "There are at least two more of those machines for the air elementals down here somewhere. If we can get them powered on, they will probably drain that central reservoir, and perhaps reveal a way out."

"'Probably' and 'perhaps'? You don't sound too certain," Gann noted. Still, it was probably better than antagonising that huge earth elemental.

"Well, you see-" and at that Safiya was off and away. Tarva sighed, and led them on, Okku by her side; Gann half-listened to Safiya, simply because the ensuing lecture was still less irritating than the sounds of that cackling hag.

He didn't really follow it, catching only the simpler words and the occasional phrase. Something about 'prime numbers' again, paired with 'two levers, so there'll be at least three of the machines, perhaps five or seven." Then she started talking about a bubble trapped underwater – why, Gann wasn't sure – and the relative hardness of air, and the machines' amplification of elemental magic. As far as he could piece it together, Safiya seemed to think that activating the machines would not drain the water away, since the entire structure was beneath the waves anyway, but somehow force it out.

A few short 'days' later, they activated a third Imaskari device, and the waterway cleared, revealing stairs and a passageway. Safiya didn't even need to say 'I told you so'; her expression was the smuggest thing Gann had ever seen.


	34. Gulk'aush

Tarva led them through the noisome, slimy passageway, skirting around the bloated, putrid corpses that littered the floor.

"No dreams, no nightmares!" The mad hag sounded different now. No longer directionless - by some trick of the building, perhaps - the voice drifted to them from somewhere ahead, and quite close.

"Remind me precisely why we are traipsing merrily towards a hag? An insane one at that?"

Tarva shook her head. "Because it's the only way forward we've seen, and I think..." she stopped and looked at him, and the flickers of expression that played around the corners of her face were faint echoes of worry. "Gann, I think that she could be-" She seemed doomed never to complete that sentence; a group of water elementals attacked them.

Several fell to Safiya's missile spell, and others to Tarva or Okku; the last, and least lucky, was consumed, the dark whiplash of the spirit-eater's power shredding it completely. Gann glanced at the small woman who had unleashed it. She was feeding more frequently these 'days'; whether that was due to the strengthening of her Hunger, or her determination not to even risk losing control now that the souls of all her companions were at stake. Probably the latter, if he understood her at all.

"We're very close now, little one," Okku said. "Even over the carrion stench, I can scent the hag."

"Right," Tarva said. "I take it we don't expect this one to prattle on about herself?"

"No," Gann said – the question was addressed to him. Then he shook his head and amended his answer. "Well, probably not. Even if she does, however, I doubt you would wish to listen."

"After days of her cackling? You're... almost right. Anyway. Okku, you and I up front. Assuming we're in close quarters, Safiya, hang back and cast from there; Gann, you're even further back, arrows and healing, you know the drill." The wizard and the shaman nodded; they did indeed know the drill. "If there's lots of room, though, scatter; Okku and I will keep her busy, and there's less chance of you two getting in each others' way. I think that's it. Except..." Tarva paused, looked at him again, those same hints of expression on her face. "Gann, I hope I'm wrong, but..." she pulled at her hair. "I can't. Look, just... just take care."

Okku had been right and they were extremely close; he couldn't even catch up to her and ask what she'd meant by those cryptic words before they were up a flight of stairs, and the tall, skinny figure of a hag was silhouetted in the next room. They entered.

"No sleep, sleeping, dream, dreaming!" The last word dissolved into insane laughter. Tarva's hands were tight on the scythe handle, but not yet readied to attack as she stepped forward, and drew the hag's attention. "Ah, another lucky one. Lucky to know sleep, to know dreams. My gift to you – eternal slumber... yes, and you might dream too, you might!"

"Gulk'aush, wait," Tarva said. The insane creature, her hair in wild locks about her hideous face, her talons caked with dried blood, and human bones hanging about her skirt, merely laughed again. The door slammed shut behind them, and the hag's magic, a vile crimson, lanced among them. Gann felt it, an icy grip of pure terror that clutched at his heart. A step backward, into the shadows of the doorway, and the stone door was unyielding against his back. He wanted to run and hide in a corner somewhere...

"Courage," Tarva said, a little weakly, more as though she was trying to convince herself than strengthen her friends.

... and then he recovered himself, nocking an arrow to his bow. Tarva, too, was on the attack, keeping the hag occupied while he fired off his spells from the shadows. He couldn't see Okku anywhere as he loosed the arrow; it flew wide as the hag dodged away from Tarva's scythe. Safiya, who'd resisted the spell, and chosen a different vantage point, fired off an Avasculate, and Gulk'aush screamed as it flew home to her.

The shrill sound loosed another spell – not one Gann recognised, hag magic was _different_ \- Tarva ducked, but the edge of it caught her anyway and slammed her to the floor. Gann's hands stilled on the bow as the hag screeched again, his arrow standing in her shoulder. Tarva wasn't moving. She wasn't – couldn't be - healing spell, now-

-and that was when the hag disappeared, and a fireball slammed into him. He turned, swiftly, painfully, and saw Gulk'aush's laugh ring out from Safiya's lips. "Lurking in the shadows won't save you. Kill you all, chew the meat from your bones."

"Okku!" Gann yelled. The bear could pin down the possessed wizard without harming her and he could tend to Tarva, but he wasn't responding. He could singlehandedly try to beat a mad hag out of a Red Wizard, or he could heal and wake up Tarva, and let her work it out.

That wasn't even a choice.

Gann concentrated on the spell as fiercely as he ever had. There was a very good chance that Gulk'aush/Safiya would hit him with another spell before he was done, and he couldn't afford to let the healing splinter on him. Almost... the expected attack came. She was trying to Disintegrate him, but the hag's control of Safiya's spells was not perfect, and Gann didn't dissolve into a pile of dust. Golden light enveloped Tarva, and she practically shot to her feet, scythe in her hands.

Just like the situation. "Safiya?"

"Possessed by the hag," Gann said, if the missiles forming at the wizard's pointed fingers weren't plain enough.

"Gann, over here." He bolted obediently to the protected space behind her, heard a small sound of pain as Tarva stepped in the path of the loosened missiles, turned to face the wizard and –

"Gann. Gannayev-of-Dreams." Safiya's eyes widened with recognition, the hag's voice was the sanest he'd heard it since entering the Skein, and neither of those distracted him from the fact she'd addressed him by his full name. "My son."

Wait, what?

"Oh, no," Tarva said, as the hag let go of Safiya and stood before them. The sharp, insane features of the hag were twisted with concern, with... longing.

"So beautiful like your father, my son Gannayev."

Tarva swore softly and motioned to Safiya (and an apparently recovered Okku) with a sharp jerk of her head, trying to be tactful, trying to get them to leave, but the doors were still clamped shut – and why was he paying any attention to that when the hag who'd been driving them all slowly insane had just claimed-

Tarva began to move away – without looking, Gann gently caught her wrist. He wanted, no, needed, her there... "You," he said to the hag. "You are my _mother_." Shock was quickly replaced by resentment, the words he'd wanted to say to this hag for years falling easily from him. "You abandoned me. Cast me to wilds of Rashemen."

The hag (his mother) had taken a few steps forward, her arms slightly raised; now they dropped, and she stood still. "'Abandoned' implies I had a choice in the matter, my child. I had none... not after I fell in love with your father."

Love. Hags knew nothing of love. He opened his mouth to say it, but she was still speaking. Madwoman and mother, she was still a hag after all of it. "I violated the sisterhood, broke the sacred laws of Kurg'annis. I took Yehovinn as my lover and I loved him. Oh, my love, my love. Your flesh stuck in my teeth, my love!" The insane wailing rose on the air as the hag stared through Gann at the ghost of a man who was not there, and subsided as she focused on him, saw him again. "I kept him hidden, kept my love safe from my sisters, told them I was simply toying with him. Toying a little longer. I fooled my sisters, gave them the corpse of another man."

Gann did not consider himself slow on the uptake, but he was having difficulty with the words and their implications. There was one solid point of reality among the swirling words of the hag, and it was composed of Tarva's presence beside him and her hand in his.

"They remained ignorant of my crimes, haha –" the maddening cackle rang out as the crone fought to maintain hold on her sanity – "my terrible crimes. They didn't know until I birthed the product of our love. My beautiful son Gannayev. Where've you gone, my son, my son? Please come back, my son, my son..."

"I'm here," Gann said, and wasn't sure why he'd offered his mother (the hag) that small comfort.

She looked at him hungrily, desperately. "Is this the homecoming you have sought? Will you listen to me, my child?" There was a part of him, formed by long years of resentment and hurt, shamefully fed by the maddening sound of her voice through the Skein, that would like nothing better than to finish the battle they'd started, see her dead at his feet... another, the lonely boy, could almost have rushed into her arms. Gann turned, looked for guidance into Tarva's dark eyes and impassive face. Saw something he hadn't expected.

"You _knew_ ," he whispered. It felt horribly like a betrayal.

Even her pale skin could blanch further. "I... suspected. Hoped I was wrong. Gann, I'm so sorry." He realised he was still holding onto her hand, but couldn't make his fingers loosen their clasp. Later.

"I'll hear what you have to say," he told the hag. "I may believe none of it, but I... want to hear you speak."

A terrible joy lit up his mother's face, even as she began to sob. "My sisters... they found my love after your birth. Found him and dragged him back to me, and they... they..." The harsh sound of her weeping rasped painfully in his ears. "They made me do as I would have done, had I not loved him so. They made me devour him alive in front of our son."

An instant of stillness and silence, broken only by her tears. Safiya's hand to her mouth in horror, Okku's blazing eyes, the firm set of Tarva's mouth and the strength of her grasp...

"Even as they forced dripping, bloody chunks of his flesh down my throat, he smiled at me, at our child. At you. He loved you so dearly, my Gannayev. As I loved him, as I love you." Her eyes fixed on him again.

He could not bear what he saw there, not after all these years. That part of his heart was far too fragile, she would shatter it with her strength. He tried - "Lies. What does a hag such as you know of love?"

All too knowing, despite the clouds of madness that passed through her face. "More than you, I think, my child. Have you not drifted from creature to creature, from spirit to spirit, finding no dream that has touched you?" He followed her gaze as it trailed down to his and Tarva's linked hands. "Or have you done so at last with this one?"

Still he could not let go of her. "You speak as if you know me, but you know _nothing_ of my life. You –"

She cut across his protestations as though they had never been voiced. "You have dreamed of this city beneath the waves all your life. Your travels have circled it, but never have your feet found its path. You know I speak the truth."

"You –"

"Do _not_ waste the short time we have together with false protests and accusations. You cannot lie to me, Gannayev, and I am not the true target of your hatred." She towered above him, the figure of the madwoman, and her hand reached out for him. It took everything within him not to flinch. "To be spawned from the love of a hag – by such things are cities and nations brought to ruins." Her bloodstained nails, longer than his hand, could reach out and pluck out his eyes, but her palm was gentle and shook slightly as she placed it against his cheek. Her eyes closed as she touched him, an expression of ultimate peace and fulfilment on the haggard face. Slowly, hesitantly, he placed his hand over hers.

"Mother," he barely breathed the word, but her eyes flew open and looked into his with bright joy – and _love_.

"My son. My love. You are so like him." A moment only. "The voices echo in my head, a cacophony that will soon reclaim me. Never to sleep, never to dream, ah-" she broke off the maniacal laughter at the first syllable. "You must be gone soon, my dear Gann. It was ordained that we should only have this brief moment, and I have waited so long. So long, my son... Listen to me. The coven who sleep here must be awakened. With _violence_." She hissed the word, her eyes intent on his. "Send them to join your father in the rivers of the dead. Take my Eye – no, wait. Not you." She took her hand from his face and rummaged in her clothing with both hands. Finding what she sought, Gulk'aush offered the small gem, the focus of her dreamer's power – Gann had seen such things before – not to him, but to Tarva.

The small half-elf accepted it without hesitancy or fear. His mother seemed to approve. "Use it in your travels. Use it against the Coven. Now, go. The escape you seek is ahead, and I do not know how much longer I can hold my sanity."

"Mother..." He'd only just found her. There was so much he still wanted to say, to ask, but he could see her eyes clouding over as the madness reached for again. "Hear my voice among those that haunt you. I – we will be together again."

Despair and love, madness and longing, and she whirled away from him, disappearing into the shadows as the doors slid open again. The voice of Gulk'aush, the madwoman of the Skein, his mother, echoed through the ruins.

"My precious son..."


	35. Again The Coven

The Skein was silent as Gann stood in the centre of the stone chamber. Tarva, beside him, raised her eyes to his, a concerned query in their depths. He had no answer for her, and simply shrugged, releasing her hand. She didn't seem satisfied, but inclined her head and changed the subject. "We had best not linger here, I think." Her voice sounded very small, but it was enough to break the spell; Safiya and Okku, who'd tactfully kept clear while Gann confronted his mother, came up to them.

The Red Wizard took one look at Gann, and visibly changed what she'd about to say. "Well. I've read about possession before. I hadn't expected to be on the receiving end." She rubbed a hand over her bare scalp. "Velander's scroll compared it to being Dominated... but it's really quite unlike. I must write an account."

Trust Safiya to be more interested in the intellectual questions raised by being possessed by a mad hag than worried about the implications. Never mind apologising for fireballing him in the back – but then, that really hadn't been her, had it?

Okku, on the other hand... The bear god's expressions were not usually easy to read, but his current one was an exception. Gann found his voice – to his relief, it came out light and easy. "Old Father Bear, you are looking most inappropriately sheepish."

Okku growled. "I have never been more ashamed in my life. I, Okku, the son's son of Wotomo, who traces his direct descent from Ursuin himself, I cowered in a corner like a mewling cub. Afraid, by Lurue! Terrified of a skinny hag, whose neck I could have snapped as easily as a frozen twig!"

Tarva scratched at the back of the great beast's neck. "Peace, Okku. Nobody here is questioning your courage. That terror was magically imposed."

"But it did not touch you, little one, or Safiya, or Gann. I was the only one who succumbed!"

The weapon master cast a warning glance at the wizard and the shaman. "Those who use magic are often less susceptible to its effects. And of the two of us, Okku, who was a greater threat to the hag? I tell you, if I were her, I would be concentrating all my efforts on nullifying the god of bears." Gann smirked - and it felt good to be himself, even if it took effort – at Safiya as Okku subsided. A bit of flattery, and Old Father Bear calmed right down. "Come," Tarva said, approaching the door Gulk'aush had indicated. "We still have a Coven to question."

The steps that led upwards were slimy with mildew and in bad repair. Okku grumbled, and motioned the others on before him. Claws to grip with did not make mounting stairs too small for his massive paws much easier, apparently. Tarva led, Gann behind her, and Safiya behind him.

"Gann," Tarva said over her shoulder. "This stone... it should be yours."

"No," he said. He was still floundering, more than a little, at the discovery of his mother, of who and what she was, but of that much, at least, he was certain. "She gave it to you, and yours it will remain. It will do far more for you than it would in my hands."

He couldn't see her face as they climbed the long stairway, but her voice was thoughtful. "Do what for me, precisely?"

"A hag's Eye is... a powerful focus. It aids the hag as she walks through others' dreams. If it has been used by a strong hag for long enough – as this one has been - it becomes imbued with some of her power."

"That's not an answer, Gann."

"Not really," he acknowledged. "Well, you are gifted with the Dreamer's Eye and the Dreamer's Voice –"

"Voice? You neglected to mention that before."

"None of us have been inclined to talk much during the last few days," Gann said – that was rather an understatement – "and you have only begun to display it recently. If you wish it, however, you may walk into dreams even as I do." She paused on the stair for a moment at that, then climbed onwards. "My mother's Eye will grant you that ability."

He would have explained further, but finally they were up the stairs and in a small, featureless room. Gann rubbed at his aching calves – they'd been doing a lot of walking over the past few weeks, but that endless flight of stairs was another matter entirely. Tarva bent and stretched, the gestures looking somewhat strange in full plate armour, as though some insane wizard - Halaster, perhaps - had decided that cross-breeding a cat and an armadillo was a simply _splendid_ idea.

"If I see another flight of stairs this month, I may well scream," Safiya announced as she rose into view. Kaji, fluttering behind her shoulder, volunteered a comment; Gann didn't hear it. There was a niggling sense at the back of his head, something he could only compare to the murmuring of many voices from a nearby room, but he was certain that he wasn't hearing it. He tilted his head to one side, then the other – probably looking quite mad – and concentrated.

"Thanks for the warning," Tarva said. "Gann, what's the matter?"

Okku lumbered up and onto solid ground, grumbling. "I would do many things for you, spirit-eater. Any creature that threatens you will face my teeth and my claws. But by all my ancestors, I will not face those steps again!"

"The chances you'll need to are, I hope, extremely low," Tarva said.

"Hmph. Little one, this room reeks of hags and hagspawn. It is even stronger..." Okku crossed the floor, nosed at the stone door. "Here. There are very many of them in the next room."

Ah. That would be it. "Yes," Gann said. Once Old Father Bear had explained it, it was trivially easy to identify the tendrils of dreaming that brushed against his senses. "We are very near the Slumbering Coven." The ones who had jailed his mother and murdered his father – if the words of the mad hag were to be believed. He... was inclined to trust that they were, remembering the love that had lit her face when she looked at him, but he was not entirely certain.

Encouraged by Safiya, Kaji was already prodding at the door that separated them. A slight, sardonic smile curved one corner of Tarva's mouth. "Well, if our previous encounters with hags count for anything, it's quite likely this will either begin or end in violence. Bearing that in mind – and, also, that it's probably not safe to rest here - how's everyone doing?"

"I could do with a rest," Safiya admitted. "That damned hag – sorry, Gann –" he shook his head slightly, taking no offence – "used a couple of my higher-level spells. I don't quite like the idea of going up against the most powerful circle of hags in Rashemen without them... but otherwise, I'm fine."

"I'm ready when you are, little one."

"Gann?"

He simply nodded. Tarva tilted her head and tossed him a healing potion. "I can see those char marks even if you've forgotten about them. Drink it." She downed one herself. "All right. Shall we do this?"

Okku pushed open the stone door; Tarva followed him, and Gann trailed at her heels.

The hag who'd sent them to the Skein, flanked by a couple of hagspawn guards. "What? Filthy half-breeds." She raised her arms, blue light beginning to glow about her fingers; in an instant, Tarva's scythe interrupted the spell.

"Not... going... back..." the half-elf's words were punctuated by strokes of her scythe, concentrated on the hag, but whirling to strike out at the hagspawn guards whenever she saw an opening. Beside her, Okku had risen to his hind legs, his massive paws raking out and rearranging the features of one of the hagspawns. It was almost an improvement.

Gann's arrows followed, but he barely had time to fire off more than a couple before there were no more targets for him, and they were left standing alone before the Slumbering Coven.

"Everyone still in one piece?" Tarva asked, panting, and looked at them. "Good to see. What have we got here, Gann?"

Nine hags, surrounded with violet light, the power of their dreaming rushing against his senses. He reached out and placed his palm flat against the spell; it was as unyielding to his touch as a blade. "We cannot simply slay them in their sleep; they are protected." Tarva joined him, and touched the barrier as it to see for herself.

"Hmmm." She reversed her grip on her scythe, and cracked the wooden butt of its handle against the spell, to no visible effect. "Safiya?"

A dispel shot over Gann's head and splashed against the glowing purple light. "Strongest I've got," the wizard said.

Tarva was pulling at her hair. Gann smirked. "It's very simple, really," and enjoyed the sensation of all eyes on him. Exactly as it should be. "Okku and Safiya will remain on guard, whilst Tarva and I invade their dream and destroy it from within."

A moment of silence.

"You can do that?" Safiya asked Tarva.

"If Gann says so, probably." She looked at him, one eyebrow slightly raised.

"Yes, with my mother's Eye, you can. Safiya, would you happen to have a Sleep spell – or two, preferably – prepared?" Looking a little troubled, the Red Wizard nodded her bald head. "Good." He surveyed the room, and chose a reasonably defensible corner to lay out a blanket. "Come," he beckoned Tarva, and sat down. A little slowly, a little reluctantly, she joined him; Okku and Safiya stood nearby. "I don't know how long this may take," he told them all. "As experienced a dreamwalker I am, I have never invaded the collective dream of the most powerful circle of hags in Rashemen."

"That doesn't sound very reassuring," Safiya noted. "Should we be worried?"

"Yes," Tarva said.

"Trust me," Gann told her. "This won't work any other way." She paused, and then nodded gravely.

Following his instructions, Tarva passed him the Eye, and lay back on the blanket. Her dark hair fanned out about her head as Gann leant over her, and resisted a flicker of temptation to simply bend his head and kiss her. Instead, he placed the Eye in the centre of her forehead, and watched her eyes widen.

"You hear it." Good. He had had a moment's doubt, and he could not have ventured into the Coven's dream alone. He laid himself down beside her. "Now, if you would kindly grace us with your spell, Safiya?" The Sleep spell wrapped around them, as Gann, his voice low, murmured to Tarva. "Listen. Be aware of the Eye, listen to the dreams of the hags, and to me. Let me guide you," and his words slipped into the nonsense syllables he used to focus even his eyelids grew heavy and closed...


	36. Again Magda

... and he opens them in the dreaming. A hazy shape wavers beside him. "Tarva," he calls her softly. "Come to me." Her form gains substance, clad in full plate armour, her scythe resting on one shoulder, and her dark eyes open; she sees him, and she becomes solid. "Well done," he tells her. He had not expected to find her so adept the first time, despite the Dreamer's Eye and Voice, and his mother's Eye: but he does not say that to her. "We are within the hags' dream."

She looks about her, at the chamber almost exactly as the one they've just left. No hags hover within walls of violet light here, and there is no Safiya or Okku; instead, there is only themselves, and the forms of two men and an illithid, seemingly in a trance.

Tarva approaches the nearest, the illithid. "They're dying," she says, and she's right, Gann sees; all three are emaciated. Whether that reflects the condition of their bodies, or the hags are draining them in another way, he doesn't know.

"We shall free them," he says. "The hags are drawing power from them, probably to fuel their protective spell."

Tarva nods, her face impassive. "How?"

Gann shifts behind her, mindful of the scythe-blade, and rests a hand on her shoulder. "First we enter the dreamlet in which they are imprisoned." He's very close to her, and he feels the tension in her. "I said, _trust me_ ," he murmurs. "Remember how you sensed the hags' dream. Remember how it felt. This dream isn't as strong, so you'll have to reach for it. Concentrate... yes, that's it," he says, as he feels her, slowly, tentatively, reach out and touch the illithid's dream. "Very good. Now, let it draw you in," and he chants softly to guide her as she begins to slip away, into the thrall's dreamlet, following her, staying with her as they open their eyes to a maze of tunnels.

Gann glances back and sees a soft rainbow portal shimmering in the air behind them. Intriguing... it suggests that the dreamlet in which the thrall is imprisoned is not merely random, but constructed with some definite purpose in mind.

That... is less than reassuring.

_:Did Illsensine send you to rescue me, or are you with the githyanki? Are you here to slay me?:_

The words appear in Gann's mind, not sound, but thought, tired and fraying about the edges. There is no mistaking them for his own thoughts, or even for Tarva's; they are alien and strange. The illithid.

"We are here to save you," Gann says aloud. Tarva glances at him, and nods her comprehension of the circumstances.

_:Then guide me from this labyrinth. Keep me safe from the githyanki. I have been so long from home...:_

"There's a githyanki, apparently," Gann tells Tarva, and is surprised by the sudden fierceness of her expression – it's a subtle change, but it's as though every feature of her face suddenly comes into focus.

"I'll take care of the gith," she says. "You get him to safety." With that, she disappears into the darkness. After a long moment, he hears her voice, raised in a proud challenge. "Githyanki! Forget about hunting the illithid – think how greatly the Lich Queen would reward you if you killed the Kalach-Cha!"

"Kalach-Cha!" another voice makes the tunnels ring with echoes.

Gann has to remind himself that Tarva always knows what she's doing.

_:You fear for her.:_ The illithid's in his head. _:You care for her. I have a mate, too... I hope I may find her again.:_

First his mother, and now this illithid. He tries to push down the thought that actually, he'd been the first – but he isn't quick enough to quash it before the damned mindflayer catches it.

_:Hau hau hau.:_ And laughs at him. :What a waste -:

"Shut up," Gann says, "and stay out of my brain, or I'll lead you to the githyanki myself."

"Too late," Tarva's voice sounds out of the darkness, and she appears before him, dark blood dripping from her scythe. "Still standing around, Gann? Come on, I saw something that might be an exit."

He follows her through the tunnels, with the illithid's sniggering in his mind. It dies when they reach the pale rainbow shimmer of the dream portal. _:Free and safe!:_ he proclaims, and disappears.

"He's out?" Tarva asks.

"Yes," Gann says, "and we should follow him. The dreamlet will collapse soon." He sweeps her a florid bow. "After you, m'lady."

"Don't call me that," she says, and disappears through the portal...

... and they stand once more in the empty chamber of the hags. The two human thralls are hidden now, and the only change is the new portal that stands before them. "You'll find it easier with the portal," Gann says, but concentrates on her anyway, making certain that she holds herself together as she steps through...

... into the backstage area of the Veil theatre. The dwarf, Magda, greets Tarva enthusiastically, ignoring Gann. It's a little unsettling – no woman every truly ignores Gann-of-Dreams – and that's when he sees the deadened look in her eyes.

"Tarva! You're right on time. Ready for your big scene?"

"Which scene, Magda?" Tarva's voice is slow and cautious; she has picked up on the strangeness of the dream and of the theatre matron too.

"Don't you remember? We composed the play for you, just as you asked."

" _The Betrayer's Crusade_ ," the playwright Vesper says. "We reserved the best part for you. The Betrayer's part."

For a moment, Gann wishes fiercely that Kaelyn was with them – or at least that he'd been listening when she talked about the Crusade. He hopes Tarva was, because this dream is wrong, it's unsettling; the undercurrents flow far too strong and deep. Gann steps forward and warns Tarva under his breath, "Follow along. There is something wrong with this dream... it's not yours, but it doesn't feel like the hags' work either. Be wary."

Her response is barely a breath. "I shall." She raises her head to address the dream-actors. "Might I have a quick look at the script? I can't seem to remember my lines."

Magda grins – for a moment, her teeth appear sharp and pointed. "The forgetting is the script. You can make your own lines, Betrayer. Here's the scene: the Crusade has failed. Your army is crushed. The god of death, Myrkul, is at your heels, and you must give your final orders to your lieutenants. Make your commands count, for they will be your legacy... perhaps all that will remain of you. Now, hurry. The audience is restless." Magda opens the stage doors.

Tarva squares her shoulders and lifts her chin; she marches through the door and onto the stage, and Gann would never have thought of the impassive half-elf as an actress, but the defeat is there in the subtle droop of her head, and determination and pride are in the set of her shoulders.

Ah, he thinks. She has the heart of a dreamwalker. He hangs back, though; Magda did not acknowledge his existence, and neither do the assorted members of the audience. One and all, they seem vicious, and their mood is ugly. Some are even calling for blood.

Tarva stands surrounded by three members of the Veil's troupe in shoddy costumes. "I am Zoab of white wings and golden brow, born in the radiance of Celestia," says one of the men, clad in a peeling golden mask and moulting, feathered wings. "For mercy, and for justice, I swore to bring down the Wall."

Another man – the one who teased Kaelyn, Gann thinks – wears a skull mask. His words have a strange, hollow ring. "I am Rammaq, the old, the dead. Thrice have I glimpsed godhood; thrice has that prize been snatched from me. For the knowledge I was promised, I swore to bring down the Wall."

"I am Sey'ryu," the girl proclaims. Her mask is blue and scaled, and the gold embroidery of her robe is frayed and torn. "The Vast, the Glorious, who soared the desert skies, blue upon blue. For the debt I owe to you, Betrayer, I swore to bring down the Wall."

"The God of the Dead draws near, and our battle is lost. What are your orders, Betrayer?" the man – Zoab – asks.

Tarva pauses a moment, surveys each one of them. "We stand here. The Crusade is lost, but others will finish our work. Let the god of the dead see just what our lives are worth – and let him beware!"

The audience erupts – not into cheers, as Gann expects at the expression of such noble, _suicidal_ sentiments – but into loud boos and catcalls. Vesper rummages through his script. "That's not your line, Betrayer!"

"That isn't how it goes at all," Magda agrees grimly.

Barely a beat, and Tarva tells her generals, "Pull the rest of our forces to safety. I'll cover your retreat. Do not forget your oaths – and do not forget the injustice of this Wall. I leave my Crusade in your hands."

"No!" Magda says. "Wrong again. I told everyone you knew this part, I trusted you, but you've made a fool of me. Mm. Everyone, final scene – the Betrayer is captured and tortured. She won't need to know any lines to play that part."

"Only how to scream," Vesper smiles.

Even the quickness of Tarva's reflexes isn't enough to pull her scythe off her shoulder and into position before Magda, Vesper and every single member of the audience swarms her. No – Gann chants quicker than he has ever before, the syllables blurring on his tongue as he calls his magic to her aid. He has to be careful as he releases the massed spell of drowning, not to hit her; its impact upon the attackers has them reeling back a second, and he glimpses Tarva in their centre. She's bloodied, her face set in a determined grimace as she takes advantage of the momentary lull. The scythe blade swings out in a wild circle, but it's enough to take Magda out.

Other spells fly from his fingers; he isn't sparing them, not when she's attacked by a massive hezrou demon and a fire giant, and other creatures he can't even name. Being ignored by them has its advantages, but he's worried about her. She's a melee fighter like no other he's ever seen, but how can she hold off all these dangerous opponents at once? His fire elemental is helping, and so are his spells, but it still feels an age before the last of them falls, leaving Tarva swaying in the middle of them, her face now covered in a heavy helmet – clever girl – and a hand pressed to her side, where her armour is stained by seeping blood.

He's at her side with healing before he can even think. "Thanks, Gann," she says, once her breathing's steady. "Wouldn't have come through that without you."

"More thanks are due to you for keeping their attention," Gann says. "I could hardly have cast surrounded by that mob."

"We'll call it even, then," she says, a flicker in her usually steady eyes. "You save me, and I'll save you."

"Done."

The three actors seem untouched by the slaughter; the man in the golden mask addresses Tarva. "Until the Betrayer returns, we will wait."

"We will watch for the opening of the Gate," says the skull-faced Rammaq.

"Look for us on the day the Betrayer returns. We will storm the City of Judgement at his side, and our oaths will be fulfilled at last..." the girl says, and the three of them disappear in a shimmer of light.

Tarva watches them go. He cannot tell what she is thinking, and so he offers a near-meaningless comment. "That dream was powerful, and there was much truth in it, I think."

"Powerful enough to nearly get me killed," Tarva says, a little wryness colouring her voice. "But that's not what you meant, and I agree. We need to talk to Kaelyn."

"Ready to move on?" he asks, indicating the portal, and she nods.


	37. Araman

The dream brings them back to the near-empty room occupied only by the two human thralls, their spirits barely tethered to their dying bodies. Without his prompting, Tarva moves closer to one of them, a man in the tatters of bright motley, and reaches out to his dream. Gann is impressed; without any of the natural advantages of a born dreamwalker, she is learning and adapting very quickly. He guides and follows her into the dreamlet that imprisons the man...

... and they're standing in a tumbledown inn, its only other occupant the dreaming human thrall.

"Greetings," Tarva bids him.

"And to you, sir. I must say, your voice is very high for a man's."

Gann chuckles – admittedly, Tarva isn't the most feminine creature he has ever laid eyes on, particularly in full plate, but taking her for a man seems quite unlikely. A quirked corner of Tarva's mouth displays her amusement. "That might be because I am a woman."

"Very funny, sir," the man says politely, "but you and I both know there are no women allowed in this establishment. Gotta keep the hags out."

"A good idea," Tarva says, "but being a woman isn't the same as being a hag."

"How I wish you were a woman," the man sighs. "I have laid neither eyes nor hands on a woman in many moons, and while you are more comely than the average man, you are not a woman."

"Well, that's the nicest compliment I've had in years," Tarva says, and shrugs one shoulder at Gann. "Assuming I haven't turned into a man without noticing it?"

"Your womanhood is not in doubt," Gann says, with the slightest trace of a smirk playing about his mouth. "I think this one is not entirely in his right mind."

"You!" the man says, hope lighting his face as he peers at Gann. "If it weren't for the fact that no women may enter here, I would think that you..." He shakes his head. "Alas, it is not to be."

"Ah, it appears your manhood is in some doubt, Gann." Tarva's eyes are lit with mischief. "Perhaps I should have cut your hair back in Immil Vale."

"I prefer it as it is," Gann says, with as much dignity as he can muster, which isn't as much as usual. "And you know me better than to judge by this man's inability to distinguish men and women."

"Of course," Tarva says, that hint of mischief belying her words. She turns away from him, to face the thrall. "How may I help you, sir?"

"You could play Hells with me."

"I'm sorry?" Tarva asks.

"Hells! An entirely original game of my own creation. I'll wager you won't be able to beat me at it."

"Have no cares for wealth," Gann tells her, as it becomes evident she's thinking about taking the human up on the challenge. "I shall dream some into being for you to play with."

"And I thought growing flowers was impressive," Tarva mumbles. "You can conjure gold?"

"A mere trick, here in the dreaming. You should be able to do the same – but one of us had best play this man at his game, and you volunteered."

"Oh, of course I did," she says, a slight sardonic edge to her voice, and chats with the man whilst Gann summons the gold into being. He vaguely overhears words – 'Nessus', 'Avernus', something about repetition – but by the time he's finished, Tarva's seated at the table, opposite the man. "Gann?" she adds, pushing a small pile of dream-gold into the middle of the table. "I don't suppose you can manage a bit of parchment and a quill as well?" They're at her hands in an instant. "Thanks. Now." She looks up at the man, and says, "Nessus, Dis, Cania, Maladomini."  
"One Devil, two Demons," he answers.

Tarva makes a note on her parchment – it looks rather cryptic – and announces another four hells. Gann loses track a little; he didn't follow the rules and it sounds entirely dull. Tarva lists four hells, beginning with Nessus each time, the man says something about demons and devils, and Tarva frowns over her parchment again.

Then she nods, a satisfied glint in her eye. "Nessus, Maladomini, Dis, Malbolge."

"Four Devils!" the thrall says, astonished. "Care to play again, while you're ahead?"

Tarva pushes over more of his gold, and begins again. Gann waits patiently for a time, then drops into musings – mostly on the subject of his mother. When the thrall announces 'Four Devils' for the third time, Gann returns to himself with a start – and no memories of what he's been thinking.

"No need to wish you good fortune, sir," the man says, pushing back his chair, and looking wistfully on the large pile of gold in front of Tarva. "You've taken all of mine, and everything I own apart from the shirt on my back. I'll not wager that to you – the hags will get me for certain if I leave this dump without it."

"But I'll wish you good fortune," Tarva says, watching the thrall leave. "And I am a woman."

"No, sir, you're no-" the end of the word is lost as the portal dissolves the man's form.

"Gods," Tarva says as the dream-gold, along with the parchment and quill, disappears. "How long has he been imprisoned here?"

"Physically, days," Gann tells her softly. "The hags hold him too securely to permit him food or drink, and men die of thirst in days. But dream-time is different – as far as he knows, he might have been here hours, or forever."

She closes her eyes for a moment. "I'm looking forward to meeting this Coven."

"They have much to answer for." They go through the portal...

... another waits in the hags' empty chamber, and without a word, they pass through it as well...

Another room of cold, dark stone. Gann's no dwarf and no expert on the subject, but the way the stones are patterned in the walls strikes him as familiar. "Gann, look," Tarva says. He turns his head, sees the bald man in red, his back to them, and his gaze is held by the object she points out to him.

A black gate, twin to the one Kaelyn was standing before when they found her. Well, not quite a twin; this gate is somehow more, exuding a terrible sense of something wrong, an abomination that should not _be_... "It doesn't belong here," Gann says. "It should not exist, not in the waking world, not in dreams."

"Yes," the man says, without turning away from the gate. "Death and life flow together in its engravings; it is carved from the very foundations of the planes. It is a twisted perversion of Ao's fabric, that divides one world from another- and it is, in its own way, aware." The man draws a ragged breath. "Pass through it, and you enter the place of final judgement, but living, not dead, not as you should be. You see the grey city with its wall of screaming souls with your living eyes..."

"The Wall of the Faithless," Tarva very nearly whispers, and then her eyes widen. "'We will wait for the opening of the Gate, on the day the Betrayer returns,'" she repeats the words of the Veil's actors. "Is this the Gate they meant, the celestial, the dragon, and the –"

"The demilich." The bald man turns to face them – and he seems to be a Red Wizard. "My brother's generals. They await his return, as he bade them. They wait in vain, for he is... gone."

"Brother," Tarva says slowly, descending the stairs. "Are you... you're not Eveshi, are you? Ahrraman?"

To hear her dredge up the names of the small boy of her dream at the Wells of Lurue is not something Gann would ever have expected. Why should her dream be connected in any way to this vision of the hags'? It's a wild, a nonsensical guess...

"Yes," the Red Wizard says. "It has been so long since I heard that name."

... and it's right. Well.

Ahrraman turns back to the gate. "It began here. I stood at the Betrayer's side, his army gathered about us. Celestials, dragons, mortals both alive and dead. Did this small room truly hold such a host? We followed him, my brother, the wielder of the silver sword –"

Tarva pales. "Silver sword. Shard of Gith. Oh, no, not again. Please-" but her words are lost as the man's voice raises in passion.

"- we followed him _blindly_! I swear to you, if I could take it back, if I could make him see..."

There's a faint sound from behind Gann, and he and Tarva turn.


	38. Again The Red Woman

Safiya walks down the stairs, her attention on the other Red Wizard.

"Safiya?" Tarva says, and then shakes her head. It's not her, although it resembles their friend closely – perhaps a little older, certainly a little harder... she is -

"Araman," she says, with loathing. That almost fits – Araman is the one who usurped her mother's Academy, but this is Ahrraman, brother to Akachi the Betrayer, and this isn't Safiya, but the Red Woman Tarva dreamed at the Mosstone, who gave her the mask fragment, and what they're doing all tangled up together defeats Gann entirely... "You, to make _him_ see? You, to change _his_ mind? You flitting shadow, you were nothing but a leaf borne by a great storm." Her face softens slightly. "Araman, why do you hunt me? You would destroy everything Akachi – _our_ Akachi – strove for, render meaningless his..." her voice catches slightly on the words - "his sacrifice."

"Not to destroy!" says Ahrraman or Araman. "To set things right. When I passed through that door I was but a feeble shadow of a greater, wiser man, a leaf caught in the storm he roused. But I _learned_ from his folly. He set love above the gods – love of _you_ , who were already dead - and he paid the price!"

Tarva looks from one to another; she and Gann are ignored, forgotten by these two, but she is absorbed in their argument, her concentration stamped on her face as she strives to work out the connections here...

"And we paid with him, you and I," the man says.

... but the connections are not what concerns Gann – the tension between these two is wound very tight, the atmosphere is charged with emotion, and if he's any judge at all, the wrong word would be disastrous. "Be wary," he warns Tarva quietly. These dreams seem focused on her, and he won't upset that balance, but he can certainly advise. "They are ready to shed each others' blood. Possibly ours."

She nods. "Ahrraman. Araman. Eveshi."

The man acknowledges her stiffly. "I will not betray my god again. She must be stopped; in her selfishness, she sows suffering in the name of love. My brother's endless torture is because of her."

Tarva weighs this for a moment, and addresses the woman. "You, Not-Safiya, the Red Woman – the Betrayer would have wanted you kept safe?"

"That was _all_ he wanted," she says, and there are tears in her eyes. "All he did, all he suffered, was in the name of love – but love was not the cause of his suffering. The cruel order of the planes tore me from him, and he led the Crusade against it."

Tarva shakes her head. "Neither of you are at fault. You both loved him, and surely he would not have wanted this strife between you."

"No, he wouldn't have wanted this..." the Red Woman says.

The man cuts right across her. "What my brother wanted does not matter. His legacy and his suffering endure. The order of the planes, the very universe cannot be torn asunder for the sake of one soul."

"Listen to me," she begs Tarva. "The order of the planes is unjust, and injustice must be righted. It is responsible for your suffering as well as ours, as well as his."

"Lies!" Ahrraman/Araman shrieks. " _She_ is responsible for it all. She tore him from me, from his god, set him on a selfish quest -"

Tarva looks at Gann, and she's completely lost. "Please, Gann, help me here."

It's not something he expects to hear, but, after a moment's thought, he nods. "Be ready, then," he warns her, and looks for cover.

"Nothing is more important than love!" the Red Woman faces down the man's fury with her own.

"Our duty to the gods-"

Gann raises his voice and cuts across them both with his own opinion, fully expecting the result to be messy. "Let the filthy creatures known as gods fume and rant – we mortals will follow our hearts, no matter the consequences." He caught a flash of Tarva's face at his words – blank –

"No. Some choices are simply... wrong." With no more warning than that, the man raised his arms, and calls another pair of Red Wizards into existence, all of whom were hostile – Tarva closed with them, her scythe quicker than magic. The Red Woman's spell rained among them, with Gann's arrows accompanying it; Ahrraman/Araman is the last of them still standing, and he falls under Tarva's onslaught.

"You... sided with... her. She is... responsible..." the wizard is wracked with shuddering fits, trying to force the words out of his failing body. "...for your suffering... too..."

Tarva whirls away from the dead man, her eyes blazing with a terrible recognition, to confront the serene Red Woman. "And so love triumphs, as it always must. Thank you." Her form, so like Safiya's, begins to fade.

"No! Wait! I know you now! You –" Tarva cries out, but the phantom disappears and the rest of her words are quieter. "- you pulled the Shard of Gith out of me. You stuck me in that barrow, fed me to the spirit-eater..."

She's right, Gann realises, and cannot believe that he, who wasn't the one carved in half and chained to a table, didn't see it earlier. "I beg your forgiveness," he says, and rests his hand on her shoulder. "It seems I chose the wrong side of that fight for you."

"No..." she says wearily. "No, at least you chose. I couldn't. I'm not even sure I understood the choice they presented. And what has Safiya to do with all of this? – it seems clear she is involved... And..." she pauses, shakes her head, looks again at the black gate. "Well. We really must talk to Kaelyn – and explore that Vault. I think we might find some answers."

"Perhaps," Gann agrees. "Certainly it's time somebody gave some to you."

Back through the portal, deeper into the dream...

... and one thrall remains in the room.

"Are you all right?" Tarva asks him.

"I was about to make the same enquiry of you. You've been insulted and attacked, not to mention assaulted by criticism of your acting."

"I can't see why," she sighs. "Admittedly I haven't the first idea how to act, but I've led troops in a lost cause before, and I know how that goes." Her wry playfulness transmutes into something a lot darker and wearier. "I'm holding together, Gann. I've had a lot of practice at it by now." Only a breath, before she deliberately lightens her tone. "You didn't actually answer the question."

He shrugs. "I could say much the same – there is much I wish to reflect upon, but now is not the time. I waited for most of my life to learn the truth of my mother... a few more hours will hardly harm me."

She nods. "Gann, I am sorry about that. I should have found some way to let you know what I suspected... "

"No," he says, slowly. "No, I doubt I would have listened. Now, we really had best be moving onward." She accepts his closure of the subject, and they pass on...

... through the portal, they are instantly accosted by a frantic human in mage's robe. "You there! You have to help me!"

Gann has never taken kindly to people telling him what he must or must not do. "Really, we must?" Then he catches sight of the red-skinned devil in the other corner of the room.

"Hush," Tarva tells him, and speaks to the mage herself.

It transpires that the mage had signed a contract with the devil, and failed to read the fine print. Said fine print contained a catch: the forfeiture of the mage's soul. The mage-thrall, naturally, is now doing his level best to get free of it, and hopes that Tarva and Gann will help him.

Tarva persuades the devil to let her look at the mage's contract, and starts squinting over it. "Gann," she says softly, "How stable is this dreamlet?"

"The hags use it to imprison a man; if it were any more stable, it could serve as the foundation of a city."

"It's just that I'm a little out of my depth here. Is it possible to introduce someone else to this dream? Sand knows all about law, and Ammon knows baatezu – between them, we could have this poor man out of his contract in an instant."

Gann smiles and shakes his head. "Tarva, the most you could do is summon your memories of them, and they could tell you nothing you do not already know. If the thrall can be freed – and I have learned better than to doubt your ability to do anything you choose to do – you do not need help." He considers this a moment, the impassive look on her face, and adds, "Any more than I can provide, in any case."

And so they spend what seems like hours checking over the contract, looking for loopholes in its labyrinth of words, and in what the mage and the devil have to say. It's possibly the most tedious task Gann has ever undertaken; he would happily have spent twice as long in his Mulsantir jail cell to bypass it. More than once, he finds himself distracted and simply watching Tarva, so intent on the parchment, or on quizzing the baatezu, that she doesn't notice him slacking off.

"That's it," she says, finally, and repeats it louder. "That's it. Enzibur, your contract with Faras is null and void. By interpreting 'go away' as 'die', you forced him to kill his master. Coercion is a violation of Baatezu law, you said it yourself. Your claim on Faras's soul is forfeit."

The devil sputters and protests, but Tarva stares him down.

Gann is staring, too, but that's a different matter.

" _Damn_ you, mortal. I won't forget this!"

"Good," Tarva says, and watches the devil materialise in a puff of foul-smelling smoke.

"That's it? I'm free?" the mage asks.

"You're free," Gann confirms.

"No more deals with devils, hmmm?" Tarva says. "Or with demons, for that matter. This wouldn't have worked with demons – they cheat."

"No, no, I won't. Really, I can't thank you enough. I..." the thrall rummages in his clothing and fishes out a dagger, which he gives to Tarva; without doing more than glancing at it, she hands it on to Gann.

It feels odd in his hands; between his bow and his spells, Gann does his best to stay away from the thick of battle, and the dagger is made for nothing more or less than up-close and personal killing. He's never used one in his life – never used anything sharper or more martial than a skinning knife. But this is different; to his senses, it seems forged from dreaming itself. It _belongs_ to him.

And all that musing on a dagger means he's missed the mage's departure, and Tarva is looking at him, one eyebrow raised. "Ready to move on, or do you and your new friend need a little personal time?"

He sheathes the weapon with a smirk. "You and your most constant companion lead the way, and we will follow."

"Your bow will get all jealous," Tarva tosses over her shoulder, as the portal swallows her...

... and they stand in the empty room, another portal – the last? – beckoning them on.


	39. Bishop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following chapter contains an _above-average_ use of _italics_ ; I _blame_ this on Obsidian, whose overuse can be slightly... _contagious_.   
>  On a more serious note, this also features a fairly nasty depiction of Bishop. Any die-hard fans may choose to imagine less offensive dialogue for our favourite bad-boy ranger, or just skip this scene altogether.

They step through the portal together, and into another place. A blank grey sky hangs over them; the landscape is featureless, save for a massive wall ahead of them. And the sounds – a great host of voices, wailing their torment.

There's something odd here. " _Is_ this a dream?" Gann asks both her and himself. "It seems..."

"Tarva?" a hoarse voice calls, cutting through the screams and cries that hang in the grey miasma. Her eyes widen in her impassive face, but which emotion shakes her so completely, he cannot say. "Tarva!" the call comes again, and he sees that she recognises the voice, as he does not.

She approaches the Wall slowly. At first it's difficult to see, but as he follows her closer, the horrific details become clear. The construction stretches so far over his head that he cannot see the top; it melts into the distance either side of him. It might as well go on forever, its mortar a thick, foul-smelling mould, its bricks the screaming souls of men, women and children. There are open mouths everywhere, begging for mercy, for death; there are hands reaching out in mute supplication or clenched in agony; there are shapes of bodies in contorted, impossible positions, limbs wrenched from their sockets and broken in a hundred places.

This is the monstrosity that Kaelyn has denounced to them, that she has devoted her entire life to destroying. This is the Wall of the Faithless.

Which, according to the priest of Kelemvor and to Kaelyn, will claim him at his death...

Gann shakes himself and hurries after Tarva, who's nearly out of sight. She stops, raises her head, and calls out a name in a raw, painful voice, as though it's torn from her throat.

"Bishop!"

He answers, and now Gann recognises the sarcastic voice from her dream, only hoarser. "Over here."

Gann catches up to her as she finds her erstwhile companion. He leans out of the wall at a strange angle; like a ship's figurehead, his legs are engulfed, and half of his spine is sucked into the wall, but his arms, torso and head move freely, uncovered by the greenish mould. His light gaze, very nearly golden, is fixed on Tarva. He regards her steadily, not with love, or even honest desire, but something uglier and twisted; a black obsession, more closely akin to hatred than to love. She stares back at him, and she is trembling.

"This... this isn't right. I killed you, Bishop. I saw you die," she says, and Gann doesn't know what to do or say. The shock of finding him has shattered her mask; it is not enough to say she appears distressed, because she is horrified – devastated - and he can feel it radiating from her.

"So you did," Bishop sneers back at her. "Nice job you made of it, too. Relatively painless, but don't expect me to thank you. Come to gloat?" He makes a sweeping gesture, indicating the Wall and himself. "I would, if the tables were turned. But I guess that the _great_ Knight Captain of Crossroad Keep doesn't stoop so low." Every word drips with sarcasm and contempt; Tarva flinches visibly when he hurls the title at her. His feral grin at her reaction displays all his teeth.

Gann realises part of why this dream seems so undreamlike, and it's to do with the man in the wall. He _resonates,_ as real people do, and dreams do not; if circumstances were different, Gann would have taken him for another dreamwalker. More, the way he looks at Tarva is something new; it fits, oh, it fits, but he's never seen it before. He has seen rage, and hatred, and pain in Tarva's dream-versions or memories of Bishop, but she's never recreated this dark, possessive gaze, because (Gann is certain) she lacks the experience to recognise it.

Bishop lowers his voice to a confidential, even intimate pitch, barely audible over the souls of the Wall. "And where is _dear_ Casavir?"

Tarva's hands clench into fists at her side; the knuckles are white as she forces the words out. "He is dead. You killed him."

"Oh, _sure_ I did – enjoyed it, too - but I figured that gith would raise him. Or you'd use that Rod of Resurrection Nasher pressed on his favourite lapdog." He studies her face, and his grin widens. "Well, now, you mean you didn't?" The tawny gaze looks over her shoulder and at Gann; he meets it expressionlessly. He's heard more than enough of what Bishop did during the war, and the casual cruelty in his eyes – and in the way he speaks to Tarva – has Gann on edge. He's not going to interfere or intrude lightly - this is clearly an important dream (or whatever it may actually be) – but if there's an appropriate opportunity...

"You cannot raise an unwilling soul," she whispers, and immediately the man in the Wall dismisses Gann from his notice, and focuses again on the half-elf.

He seems delighted to hear her words. "Wouldn't have thought the _paladin_ had it in him. Betrayed all his oaths to Neverwinter and to you, just to lie down and die... Congratulations. You must have really broken his heart. I admire that in a woman." He leans an extra inch toward her. "Tell you what; if I see him in this Wall, I'll give him your _love_."

Her face works strangely, and he laughs to see it.

"Oh, well, I suppose you just couldn't bear to be alone... but this hag-spawned wretch seems like rather a comedown after your dear paladin. Even if he's male, presumably willing, and convenient."

"Leave Gann out of this," she says, and the force behind the words surprises both men.

"Better guard your black heart, hagspawn," Bishop grins at him. "Or whichever of your organs the bitch is using to lead you around. I give you fair warning: the only way you'll get any _satisfaction,_ " his mouth twists into a grin that makes his meaning abundantly clear, "out of _her_ is to put her flat on her back with your dagger to her throat. Maybe not even then, but to be honest, I never tried it."

"Charming," Gann says, and is pleased to hear the tone, if not the word, expresses his opinion of Bishop perfectly. He steps closer to Tarva, standing beside her. She barely seems to notice him at her shoulder; her attention is still fixed on the traitor in the Wall.

"Gann is," she hesitates slightly, as though debating the rest of the sentence, "a trusted friend. More than you ever were." She throws the words at him, a poor echo of the Tarva he knows, with her clever wordplay and neutral mask. It warms him all the same, even to hear this much – she _does_ trust him.

"More trusted than the man who let the hordes of undead into your keep? Who killed your pet paladin? Treasure that compliment, hagspawn. You'll never hear another from _her_ lips." Bishop smirks at her, the cruel half-smile of a cat with a songbird under its claws. "I've got something you want." He reaches up and into the Wall above his head with both hands; they re-emerge curled into a double fist. He doesn't take his eyes from her face as he opens them to reveal the third, the missing mask fragment.

"How did you-?" Tarva asks, stepping forward.

He chuckles. "Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no tales."

She reaches out to take the mask fragment from his hand, and Bishop smirks at Gann over her head. A sudden, ice-cold certainty strikes him –

"No –" he cries out, and leaps forward to pull her away, but it's too late; her fingers have closed over the fragment, and Bishop's hands snap shut around her wrist.

This, a direct threat, she can deal with better. She pulls away from him, trying to tug her hand free; he still holds her fast. "Let me go, Bishop, or I'll break your fingers." He snickers as she drops her scythe and pries at his grip with her loose hand, and only just reacts fast enough to stop him catching that, too.

"Not much of a threat, even by _your_ standards. Even if you could carry it out. It's always amused me how dependent you are on that scythe of yours; sure, with it you're a predator, but without it... you're as weak as any other woman. Prey."

Gann grimly unsheathes the strange dagger the wizard had given them. "Tarva, I think this one would be better served without his hands at all."

The screams of the tormented souls in the Wall grow louder; something is happening.

"You're _mine_ ," Bishop says to Tarva, matter-of-factly, as though there could be no questioning it. "Always were... and guess what? Always will be." A quake runs across the Wall, the greenish mould releasing clouds of spores that obscure Gann's vision. The hideous sound of breaking bones mingles with Bishop's scream, and Tarva cries out wordlessly.

When it clears, only Bishop's face is clear of the Wall; his head, his arms are deeply engulfed – and so are his hands.

"You _bastard_ ," Tarva says hoarsely.

He has drawn her into the Wall with him; her arm is buried half-way to the elbow. She strains wildly, blindly, vainly to pull herself out; her free hand scrabbles at the mould of the Wall. Bishop chuckles to see it.

No. Gann stares, shakes his head, stupidly. No.

"Well, now, hagspawn, just whose hands were you going to chop off again?"

The taunt restarts his brain. If you are slain within a dream, you cannot find your way back to the waking world; you are good as dead. If he does as Bishop suggests – if there is no other way to free her – there shouldn't be any harm to her actual body... but he isn't _sure._ And what if this dream is not truly a dream at all, as he suspects? He cannot face that risk, and he cannot simply let the Wall have her, and he cannot just keep standing there as she struggles, as panicked and unreasoning as a bird battering itself against the bars of a cage...

"Can you hear it now? In the screams, underneath the screams, in the pattern of the shrieks and moans?" Bishop asks Tarva. "They know why you're here. They're infected with hope... waiting for the Crusade to return."

She freezes for a moment, as though something has caught her attention, and Gann takes hold of her arm and pulls, adding his strength to hers. It's not enough; Bishop, or the Wall itself, holds her securely, and his efforts are hurting her. He lets her go, and she resumes her wild, unthinking thrashing – he's never seen the cool, calculating weapon master so uncontrolled, and it frightens him...

"Fools," Bishop says. "Now, me, I don't fight the Wall. I knew where I was going when I died. Oblivion is a finer bedfellow than most – but now I'll have the great Knight Captain of Crossroad Keep to keep me company. I guess that's something, after all..." the caustic voice fades away as Gann hacks at the mould of the Wall around her arm. At first, the feathery mould scrapes easily away.

"You will _not_ have her," he mutters through clenched teeth.

"The Crusade ended here," a different voice says, although it speaks through Bishop's mouth as Gann digs deeper into the Wall. The dagger scrapes against her armour, and then cuts into soft flesh; Bishop and Tarva cry out in unison and Gann changes the angle of his attack immediately. Did he cut her or him? Both? He widens the hole, and it's harder going now; there's something in the way, and Tarva's not helping, she won't stay still.

"This Wall hungers... it drains everything away."

"Who are you?" Gann mutters. "You're not Bishop."

The tawny eyes fix on him; he can feel them, but he's too busy to look up. There's a cold fear at the bottom of his heart, and he listens to the voice answer as he chips away at the Wall, trying to distract himself from it. Except that it doesn't answer, exactly.

"You've arrived here before your time, shaman. And her... I've seen her before. Here, in the Wall."

Tarva's still trying to free herself, desperately, mindlessly, but now, there's a little movement. "She's never been here before," Gann says, pulling more of the mortar clear; deeper in, the greenish mould is studded with wickedly sharp barbs. "And neither of us have any intention of returning."

"No..." the voice says slowly. "No, she's just a mask."

He's been hacking away, and he's made some progress, but it doesn't seem like enough, not nearly enough, and there's another quake coming, he can hear it.

"He's seen you... the god of the dead."

"Then let him look!" he snaps, and pulls. There is resistance. The Wall does not relinquish its prey easily; it has set several of its thorns in Tarva's flesh, and she shrieks as he drags her out, inch by painful inch. The quake ripples over the Wall and covers Bishop's face, as finally Gann pulls her free of the Wall.

Tarva clings to him as though to a lifeline, babbling words and phrases, only some of which he can understand at all. "Bishop... the Wall... it knew me, it _wanted_ me..." She who has faced hags and witches alike, held a furious, invincible bear god at bay, who he has seen charge the King of Shadows without hesitation, who wrestles daily with a curse that for all they know will take her into madness and death, she is utterly _terrified_ now.

Gently he hushes her, muttering soothing nonsense as she trembles like an autumn leaf in his arms. Her rapid heartbeat shudders against his chest, and he can feel it because their armour is gone. He doesn't know if that's his doing or hers; he doesn't care. "I _knew_ it, Gann, I was already in there..." Her breath comes in harsh, painful sobs, and he hates the sound of it; slowly, in case she should protest, he folds his arms about her, and he holds her close. He does not expect it when she presses closer to him, her head tucked under his chin. He dares to reach up to stroke her hair.

He's not sure how long they stand there, whether it's an instant or an eternity, but there comes a time when her breath is steady and her pulse has slowed its frantic beat. He feels the tension in her body as she comes fully back to herself and realises just where she is, and he loosens his grasp enough to let her free, expecting her to spring away.

But she stays where she is a moment longer, and then she eases back, a little awkwardly; enough to look up at him without leaving the circle of his embrace. She takes in a deep breath, then releases it again; she looks directly into his eyes, and her expression is grateful (which does not surprise him), a little shy (which does), and a little puzzled. Something has changed between them, and she's not sure what it is.


	40. Again Gulk'aush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is about as graphic as my fic gets, folks, and it's not the happy kind of graphic either. Just be warned.

Gently Gann takes her hand, as silence stretches out between them, full of questions and words for another time, but not uncomfortable. He is careful not to touch the injuries Bishop inflicted upon her, and ignores, for now, the fury they wake in him. His spell closes the bloody furrows on her arm that mark the Wall's attempt to hold her, and erases the dark bruises of Bishop's grasp.

"Thank you," Tarva says simply, but he can feel the depth of emotion behind the words; they are not intended merely for the healing, but also for pulling her from the Wall, and they are meant for comforting her afterwards, and for the questions he has not asked.

"I think we had best not linger," he says. It is surprisingly difficult to speak, and his voice sounds strange in his own ears.

"Just one moment," she says, as he releases her hand; she leaves the grey, repulsive mask fragment with him – he is shocked to see that she still held onto it, even in her panic - and she returns to the part of the Wall that clasps Bishop in its depths. True to her word, she stands there for only a breath; her lips move, but he can neither hear nor read the words she says. She picks up her dropped scythe and props it on one shoulder, and turns away from the Wall of the Faithless.

"Armour," he reminds her. She blinks, then nods. A moment later, she is sheathed in heavy plate armour, including a helmet. "Shall we?" he asks, and she simply nods again, something of her usual neutrality smoothing over her sharp features – not deliberately assumed or invoked, but habitual. She enters the portal without looking back; Gann lingers a moment, the cries of the souls of the Wall filling his ears, and wonders...

...So many layers and dreams deep, and here is the Slumbering Coven, finally; hovering in the air, eyes closed, with no sign of the protective barrier about them. The sense of their dreaming, mere whispers in the waking world, is louder now. Murmurs crash and thunder like waves in the air about them, murmurs that slowly coalesce into a single voice.

**_Speak._ **

Tarva opens her mouth, but the words burst forth from Gann, laden with all the hurt of an abandoned child and with the memory of the love in the mad eyes of his mother. "You are the Slumbering Coven, the ones who have slept beneath Rashemen. If my mother spoke true, you slew my father, punished my mother never to sleep, never to dream, exiled her to the Skein. Why? Why did you do that to her, to him? To me? What did any of us do t-"

**_She broke our law, spawn, and she was punished appropriately._ **

"And what of my father – what law did he break? How was he punished?"

"And Gann?" Tarva asks, stepping to his side. "He was a _child,_ and you left him to die. How was the manner of his birth _his_ fault?"

**_We are creatures of dreams, not words. Telling is cumbersome for us. We will show you._ **

The shadows around them gain colour and shape, formed into the hags' memories of one of their sisters.

There is a tiny baby in the hag's arms, his skin blue-violet, tufts of silvery hair on his head. She kisses his eyes, his cheeks; his small, flailing fist lashes out and hits her on the nose. She laughs and croons nonsense to him. It is almost impossible to reconcile this hag – this woman, his mother – with the mad Gulk'aush of the Skein, and Gann feels something coil within him, sharp and cold, like a serpent.

Her head flies up from her child, hearing what only a moment later becomes audible to Gann. The howling of hags, the hammering rush of running footsteps, the protests of a man. They haul him into the room, the coven of hags, and they stand him before Gulk'aush (and there's no need to guess who he is, his son shares the same handsome face), his eyes fix on the hag and the child, terrified, wide and pleading. Not with them, but for them. The man smiles at her, or tries to, with his bruised mouth, and his lips form words _, My love. Yvae. Gannayev, my son_. She shakes her head violently, every witch-lock flying, her eyes fixed on his, filled with love and despair.

They tear the screaming baby from her arms; it takes four of them to hold her down. And then they start on the man, tearing off his clothes, their sharp nails raking his skin in the process. Grinning at Gulk'aush, one of them slides her hand along the man's calf in a sickening caress. Slowly, so slowly, her talons pierce his skin, and sink deeper – he's trying not to scream, looking only at his lover and their son, but as the hag tears free a handful of his flesh it escapes him anyway and the sound of his pain jolts through Gulk'aush, and through Gann.

They take that dripping, bloody gobbet of flesh, and they approach Gulk'aush. She protests, she struggles, she cries and wails, but they hold her mouth open – and they force her lover's flesh down her throat.

Gann is only dimly aware of Tarva beside him, of the force of her cold-burning fury. His eyes are fixed; he cannot look away from his mother's suffering, his father's slow death. It must be witnessed. The scene is blurring; he shakes his head furiously to clear his vision and never feels the tears. Tarva grips his hand, and even over the howling in his mind he can hear her voice, low, forceful, so much rage behind it that it's barely recognisable as hers: "Gann, I swear to you, _I will see them dead for this_."

It goes on for a long time, the man's screams fading into hoarseness, and into whispers, but he never looks away from Gulk'aush. There is so much blood as the hags tear him to pieces; it's on their hands, it forms a mask on his mother's face, it washes over the floor until it halts just short of Gann's feet. Finally the man falls silent, no more than shattered fragments of bone and rags of skin and flesh, but the baby is crying for his mother, and Gulk'aush is ranting, the light of madness blossoming in her eyes.

The hags lay their final curse on her – never to sleep, never to dream – and throw the remnants of her love at her as they exile her to the Skein. The baby is wailing, the desolate sound ringing in the room, in the adult Gann's head...

The vision fades, and Gann sees the Coven in front of him, through the blurring red mist of his fury. He reaches blindly for a weapon, starts forward – and Tarva restrains him. It is not just her arm across his chest, or her rage, which very nearly equals his own, that holds him back. Her eyes are as bright and hard as diamonds. "Wait," she says, her voice cold as death. "Not yet. First I will wring from them every answer they have to give. And _then_ – "

He barely hears her question the Coven, ask about the dreams they showed her, about the curse, her former companions, the Sword of Gith, Lienna and Nefris. He barely sees the red woman and the white - another vision – step from the shadows to ask their question of the Coven. He sees Gulk'aush, still; he hears his father's death. They linger inside his mind, playing out again and again, until Tarva's voice cuts through them.

" _Now,_ Gann!"

The chant falls easily from him, words to shape their twinned fury and tear the web of the hags' dream apart. He feels Tarva with him, reaching out and slashing the most ancient bindings of the Coven's endless dream – to bring it finally to an end...

... And the hags woke to find a Red Wizard and a god of bears waiting for them; they were followed by a coldly furious weapon master intent on their slaughter and an avenging berserker that had once answered to the name 'Gannayev'. He didn't see the others spring into battle as he rained his spells down on the coven, didn't notice Okku caught by the edge of one of them, or Tarva, at his side, putting herself and her full plate between him and a blow that would have carved him in half.

He was aware only of the vision the hags had shown him, and the need to make it _stop_. He ran out of spells, and reached for his bow; then took out the dream-dagger instead. The distance of a bow would not satisfy him, and the dagger grew in his hand, shaping itself in response to his need, becoming a short sword.

The cries (man, woman, child) rang in his head, calling for justice, calling for death, and not even when the last hag fell were they silenced. He rushed from the room, hardly hearing the meaningless voices behind him, the pounding footsteps of those who followed, the fragmented sentences whispering behind the cries –

"- peaceful asleep, then you woke –

"- and Gann –"

"- never seen him like that –"

The first rush of the hagspawn guards hit him like a wave. He swung the sword with more emotion than skill; clumsy and driven, he thrust and parried. A spell fired over his head; a scythe cut in and out of his field of vision.

"- damn it, Okku, keep on him, he's not thinking –"

"- not even a fighter – "

"- you can't, little one – "

He slew the hags over and over again, sweeping through Coveya Kurg'annis like a cleansing fire. There was a blaze of pain, a cloud of missiles, neither of which concerned him. He shook his head, trying to clear it of the distractions. They didn't go away, even as the red haze intensified.

"- what did they do? –"

" – monsters – "

"– _and they made Gann watch_ -"

He was dimly aware when the light and the air changed, when they won free of the hags' ruins and into the twilight of the Shadow Plane. Even there, the vision haunted him; even then, he heard them. Snarling, he turned to face the hags behind him, and they begged him for their lives –

"-Gann –"

"-Gann – "

"- _Gann_ \- "

He brought his sword down in a clumsy overhand strike. It thudded into the solid wood of a scythe handle, brought up to block him. He tried to wrench it free, but he couldn't move fast enough; it twisted from his grasp, and he couldn't get clear of the swift descent of the butt of the scythe -

\- and all he had time to think was that he'd failed, as the darkness reached to claim him...

... he woke some time later, stretched out on the day-shore of the Lake of Dreams, his head aching abominably, and the heavy head of a giant spirit bear laid across his chest and pinning his arms to his sides. There had been worse awakenings, but not many. He couldn't even think of anything witty to say about the situation.

Tarva was looking down at him. "Gann?" she asked, and her voice was raw with concern.

And then memory returned. What the hags had shown him.

She must have seen the moment he remembered; Tarva nodded to Okku, who removed himself from Gann, and padded further up the shore to where Safiya waited. Tarva knelt down beside him, as he pushed himself upright, and silently offered him a healing potion. He took it, just as silently, and drank it down; the pain in his head receded.

"Gann..." Tarva began, stopped, shook her head. "Gods. I am no good at this. Gann, I am so sorry." Hesitantly, she put her hand on his shoulder. He turned his head, saw her face entirely open. She worried for him, she hurt for him and with him, she was so unsure, afraid, vulnerable. Something became clear within him; something that had been cloaked and muddied for some time – for how long? "I don't know what to say, what to do," she said. "I don't know how to be comforting."

He reached up, covered her hand with his. The gesture was more than half a caress. "Just stay," he said, and now, was not surprised to hear the simple words emerge with more weight than they had ever carried before. "Please."

She sank down to the sand beside him, and they watched the sun rise over the lake together.


	41. Again The Sleeper

His death in the Skein, and resurrection at Tarva's hands. Meeting Gulk'aush, his mother. Voyaging through the dreamscape of the Slumbering Coven, Tarva at his side. Freeing the Coven's dying thralls. The Wall of the Faithless, and Bishop's attempt to trap Tarva within it. The hags, and the truth of his parents. Tarva's vow of vengeance. Wrath and destruction. Waking on the day-shore of the Lake of Dreams, to her face...

The memories and emotions swirled within him, too much to take in. So many questions. One fell from his mouth, the least important of them, one he didn't even particularly care about. "Why was there a bear sitting on me?"

Tarva turned to look at him, her face very nearly clear of emotion, the sun waking cobalt lights in her dark hair. "Ah. Well. How much do you remember after we attacked the Coven?"

"Very little," Gann admitted. "I remember running out of spells, but not using my bow. I remember when the air changed." He remembered the screaming in his head, and the desire to slaughter the hags. He remembered the rage.

"You..." the half-elf was visibly searching for the right words, and her uncharacteristic hesitancy suggested she didn't think she'd found them. "You went a little... berserk. You took up a sword –"

Surely not. "Tarva, I can't _use_ a sword."

"It showed," she said. "You tried to hack your way out of the sunken city, through all those hagspawn guards we met on the way in. We had... difficulty keeping up with you. Keeping you safe." She paused, took a deep breath. "When we were free of the guards, when we reached the surface, you... tried to attack us."

Gann glanced over his shoulder to where the others waited, Safiya frowning over a staff, Kaji fluttering near her shoulder, and Okku scratching himself against a tree. "Clearly I failed."

"Yes. I, well, I knocked you out. But I wasn't sure if you'd... be yourself when you woke, so I asked Okku to keep you still."

"I see," Gann said, staring out over the lake. He could feel her watching him.

"You owe me a scythe handle," she added, apparently feeling that he needed a little banter, a little lightness. Whatever he thought she'd been about to say, that wasn't it.

"What?"

"You can't use a sword, but you were trying very hard. You cracked my scythe handle."

"A debt I shall be pleased to repay, when we once again reach civilisation." He responded automatically; he was thinking, remembering. His mother, and the way she had looked at him, in the Skein, and in the hag's vision. His father, and how brave he had been, his gaze never wavering from his love and their child. "All this time," he said, and heard his voice crack, felt a painful stinging at his eyes. "All this time wasted, judging her for something she had not done." He scrubbed violently at his eyes with the back of his hand, feeling them already wet.

"Gann," Tarva said, softly, and then, rather awkwardly, put her heavy, plate-armoured arm around his shoulders.

"She did the exact opposite." He fought to keep the words clear and steady, but despite his best effort, they broke into sobs. "Felt the exact opposite."

"Gann," she said, again, a little helplessly. Her arm tightened around him.

"She loved my father. She loves _me_." And then he lost the final shreds of his self-control, and simply wept for his mother, for his father, for himself, and what the hags had done to the three of them. Tarva didn't move, didn't mutter soothing nonsense, she was simply there, and that was enough.

The storm passed quickly. Gann drew in a slightly shaky breath, and looked up at Tarva. Her sharp features were decidedly neutral, but that was easier to face than sympathy would have been. And he realised – "Tarva, the Coven – did they give you answers?"

She tilted her head slightly to one side, removing her heavy arm from his shoulders. "Not exactly. More questions, really, but there's some indications – anyway, Gann, I'd rather not talk about it right now, if you don't mind. There's a lot to go over with Kaelyn and the others, and I'd prefer not to explain twice."

"Of course."

Another time of silence.

There was so much he wanted to say, or to ask, about the dreams they'd shared, or the time in the Skein, but he felt certain that she would speak when she was ready. In the mean time, though - "Tarva," he said, knowing he had to tell her this much, at least, of all the emotions and questions that surged through him, "everything that the Black Garius of your dream promised me, everything he tempted me with, you've given to me."

"You said he offered you power," she said. "I've hardly –"

"Not that," he interrupted. "The other thing he promised me, the one I... didn't want to tell you at the time. This." He swept out a hand, indicating the lake, the hazy outline of the empty city. "He offered me answers, Tarva, and he offered me revenge. You've given me both, and they were more than I had ever hoped for." Gann did not voice the next words lightly, taking her hands in his, and looking into those endlessly dark eyes. "This is my promise, the first vow I have ever made. Tarva, I will do everything in my power to free you from this curse."

She searched his face. "You really mean that."

"With all my heart," he answered.

She turned her face away for an instant, took a breath. When she turned to look at him again, there were vanishing traces of a soft expression he'd never seen her wear; not even in her dreams, not even hinted at in the waking world. There was still something unfamiliar in the line of her mouth. "Oh, Gann. I had hoped there'd still be one of you free to walk away from all this."

"I was under the impression that you never turned away a willing ally." He attempted to quote her words he could remember from that long-ago nightmare, knew he'd got them wrong.

"No, I don't. But usually, it takes more to destroy one of my friends than a momentary lapse of my self-control." She spoke without hesitation, but Gann could hear the iron determination that underlay her words, and the ever-present fear that her determination would fail her, and what she spoke of would come to pass.

"I trust you," he said. "I know your strength. You will not devour against your will. Your curse may reach for me, since for a empty manifestation of hunger, it displays impeccable taste-"

"No!" and Tarva sprang to her feet. "Don't you dare joke about that, Gann! You don't know how brightly you burn. I'm not some legendary heroine, and I don't know how long I can fight this. You should go, while it's safe, before I –"

"No," he said, and rose in his turn, reaching out to cup her face in both hands. She was instantly motionless at his touch, due not to simple wariness at his proximity, but to the way the spirit-eater stirred in reaction to him. He could feel her tension pulse under his fingers, as she wrestled it back down. "No, I'm not going anywhere. I gave you my promise; I did not do so lightly, and I dislike the idea of breaking the very first promise I have ever made. That would be setting a terrible precedent. I _know_ you won't harm me, or anyone else."

"I wish I shared your certainty," she almost whispered. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because I l-"

"Tarva! Gann!" Safiya was calling them, and Tarva ducked free of him, her scythe in her hands before he'd even properly registered her absence; her battle-forged reflexes were far superior to his.

Gann wasn't certain whether he wanted to strangle Safiya for interrupting, or kiss her. The words had begun to spill from him, truth that he'd hidden and suppressed for some time. He didn't know if he was really ready to face that realisation; he knew that Tarva wasn't ready to hear it, but such a truth, such a revelation, demanded to be voiced...

He forced himself to concentrate – easy to tell why Safiya had called them. In one particular spot on the shore, the air was stabbed with flickers of darkness, and the occasional flash of orange.

He'd never witnessed this phenomenon, but even Kaji would've been able to make this guess.

Someone was passing through the Gate from the Shadow Plane.

Someone else had escaped Coveya Kurg'annis.

The bursts of darkness gathered speed and strength; for one moment, they formed a black oval, limned with orange light, and spat a figure forth –

\- and then there was only the golden sunlight, the unblemished lakeshore, and the crumpled figure of a slight woman. Tarva dropped her scythe, and got an arm under the woman's lolling head. The clouds of dreaming clung powerfully to her, and it was that unmistakeable detail which told Gann who it was, before he caught up with Tarva and saw the dusky skin and snowy hair of the person she supported.

The sleeping woman from the Skein, the one who, indirectly, had gotten him killed.

"Gann, help me. Heal her!" Tarva ordered him.

He obeyed, pouring healing into the woman. She had suffered no wounds, for they had left the Skein and the ruins it supported almost empty, but she was very weak. Her worshippers had been fanatics, and therefore were only sometimes sufficiently in touch with reality to feed a woman in a trance – and, of course, once Tarva, Safiya and Okku had killed them, nobody had cared for her. Moreover, there was no telling how long she had been sleeping, but it was long enough for the muscles of her body to grow lax. That she had reached them before they left was extraordinary.

Gann's magic suffused her body and corrected the damage, as Tarva held potion after potion to the woman's lips. Safiya had muttered something about being useless; Okku had growled about all the sand in his fur and entreated her to make herself useful and apply her famed intelligence to the problem.

Finally, the dreamer's slender hand made a sharp motion. Tarva set down the bottle; Gann let his spell dissolve. "Enough," she said, her wine-coloured eyes opening. "I am hale." She blinked in the bright sunlight as her eyes cleared, and then fixed on Gann. "You... I know you. I sensed you, down in the dark. You are a dreamwalker. And –" this with puzzlement- "you are a hagspawn."

"Yes," Gann admitted. He would make allowances for one in such a state, but, really, was that the first thing she felt obliged to comment upon?

"You –" the dreamer turned to Tarva, and looked even more puzzled. "You are not a dreamwalker, not quite... what _are_ you?"

" _Who_ would be a much politer place to start," Tarva said, one corner of her mouth quirked upwards. She stood, and offered the dreamer a hand up. "I am Tarva El-Auri, a weapon master. This is my companion Gannayev-of-Dreams; Safiya and Okku also travel with us."

"Forgive me," the half-drow said, accepting Tarva's assistance to her feet. "The hags held me long – long enough to forget my manners, it seems. I am Skyla Avolov of Mulsantir."

"We travel toward Mulsantir," Tarva said. "You are most welcome to join us."

"A most kind and courteous offer," Skyla said, with every evidence of surprise. "Not something I expected a half-elf to extend to a half-drow. Perhaps you have failed to notice my race?"

"Not at all," said Tarva, and she was almost smiling. "It's fairly obvious. But before I came to Rashemen, a tiefling was one of my most loyal friends, and half-drow haven't nearly the reputation they have. Besides..." and Tarva looked over the dreamer in a more calculating way; despite its unfriendliness, it seemed to reassure the half-drow. "If you are inclined to make trouble, I'm pretty sure that between a weapon master, a shaman, a Red Wizard and a bear-god, we can handle you."

Skyla inclined her head. "You are quite correct. When will we leave?"

"We're ready when you are," Safiya said, ignoring Kaji's crow of triumph at freeing another grain of sand from Okku's fur. Gann felt the sympathy in her glance, and ducked his head, his hair swinging like a protective veil in front of his eyes.

Tarva looked over them all, her impassive mask revealing nothing of the aftermath of their time among the Slumbering Coven. Gann almost envied how easily she assumed it. "Does anyone have any problems with 'now'?"

"Not I, little one," Okku rumbled. Skyla looked rather taken aback at the bear-god's words. Probably she'd not expected a god of her people to be referring to a stranger by endearments.

"Suits me," Safiya offered.

Tarva looked at him, the slightest hint of concern in her eyes. "One moment," he said, and turned away from them.

Gann looked out across the lake, the ruins that housed his mother, and where so much had happened. After so many years, to be standing here... His life had taken a sharp turn when he'd met the spirit-eater, and now he had willingly bound himself to see it through to the end, to see Tarva freed if it could be done at all.

Because he loved her.


	42. Anya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Paying closer attention, it appears that Skyla always wears a blindfold. That would explain why her face looks funny. Ah, well. Blind seers are such a fantasy cliché anyway. 
> 
> Not that red-eyed drow are that much better, I guess.

The presence of Skyla Avolov among them cast a slight pall over the small group. None of them were going to speak of what had transpired in Coveya Kurg'annis in front of her, even Safiya, who was practically vibrating with mongoose curiosity. Okku, who was uninterested in such details by nature, and Gann, who already knew them, were considerably calmer. Tarva seemed quite her usual self – that was, almost unreadable - except that Gann caught her, more than once, glancing over her shoulder to check on him. That was... a start, he supposed.

The dreamer herself was less at ease. She appeared too awed to speak to Okku, and wary of Safiya. Given how many times Thay had attempted to invade Rashemen, it was hardly surprising. That left only Gann and Tarva for her to speak with, and she turned to Tarva first. Curious, Gann reflected, without rancour, how even a member of another commonly despised race still looked down on a hagspawn.

Or perhaps she was simply curious about Tarva, who was "not a dreamwalker, not quite", which would not surprise him at all.

Skyla walked by Tarva's side, speaking so softly that Gann could not overhear a single word; Tarva's voice was equally low. Ah, the problems of travelling with those who possessed superior hearing and _knew_ it. The exchange appeared amicable enough, even friendly-

"I am perishing of curiosity," Safiya announced, scattering his thoughts. "You both looked so peaceful asleep – you were out for nearly three hours, by the way - and then the hags' barrier went down, and they attacked us. I've never seen Tarva angry like that... it's rather frightening, but you were scarier." She shrugged a little at his expression. "I simply cannot be tactful any longer. What in all the Nine Hells happened back there?"

"How much did Tarva tell you, while I was..."

"Incapacitated?" Safiya finished the question before Gann could find the right word. "Very little. Partly, she said, because she didn't want to go over it twice, and some of it, she said, belonged to you alone. She did mention that the hags showed you a vision... well, "made you watch" were her words." For someone who'd denied any tact, the Red Wizard picked her way through her next sentence with uncharacteristic hesitation. "She implied that it was... less than pleasant."

She really hadn't told Safiya and Okku anything. It was... reassuring, after the way he'd been exposed in the Skein; this much, at least, was his to share or keep. He debated which he wanted to do.

"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to," Safiya said, watching him. She added, less seriously, "You'll merely have my death of curiosity deprivation on your conscience if you don't."

"Is that a painful way to go?"

"Excruciating."

"Reluctant as I am to have it said that Gann-of-Dreams allowed a beautiful woman to die needlessly-"

There was a screech – no other word for it – and his head snapped up.

" _You killed the Slumbering Coven_?"

Tarva's answer was short, unruffled, and to the point. "Yes."

"I do not know whether to thank you or curse you for the deed."

"You have no qualms about travelling with a Red Wizard and a hagspawn, but the fact that we killed the Slumbering Coven – and therefore released you from their prison – gives you pause?"

"The hags had amassed the greatest depository of knowledge in all Rashemen, and you destroyed it."

"That does not excuse their deeds," Tarva said, her voice very firm. "They stole that knowledge for their own hoarding – and how many lives did they take or blight in the process? You were imprisoned for walking dreams as they did, and shielding innocents from them. That does not affect just you, or your granddaughter, still waiting for you in Mulsantir. When the hags held you captive, they were free to batten on those you should have been protecting."

Gann exchanged glances with Safiya. The wizard showed no signs of dying immediately of frustrated curiosity, and apparently found Tarva lecturing a Rashemi dreamwalker on her duty as amusing as he did. Well, as long as she didn't try it on him...

Skyla Avolov was made of stern material, it seemed; she argued. "Stranger, you went to the Coven for answers you could find nowhere else, and you went in need. Nobody seeks out the hags unless they are desperate. All that knowledge, all those answers are lost now, and who will help those who need it in future?"

"You... have a point," Tarva conceded, and her head bowed slightly, a flower too heavy for its stem. "I could not do otherwise." Her head came up again, her shoulders squared. "In any case, it is done, and I do not regret it."

The dreamer began to protest, then closed her mouth and looked at Tarva, her crimson eyes both thoughtful and shrewd. "Why not?"

One eyebrow slightly raised, Tarva stared Skyla down. "That really is none of your concern."

"I... suppose not."

Gann chuckled. When the weapon master quelled someone, they stayed quelled; he heard barely another word from the dreamer all day. He did catch her studying him more than once, however.

Well, nothing new there.

-0-0-0-0-0-

By the time the sun sank behind the distant blue hills, they had covered a great deal of distance; natural enough, considering that all of them were eager to leave the Sunken City behind, and most had pressing reasons calling them to Mulsantir. Like the others, Gann expressed mild rejoicing when the low roofline appeared ahead of them, and the possibility it suggested of somewhere more comfortable to sleep than the ground, until he realised exactly to whom the roof belonged.

The farmer Janiik, and his daughter Anya.

It had been awkward enough the first time they'd met; Janiik had threatened Gann with a pitchfork and Tarva had threatened _Janiik_ with her scythe for threatening Gann, and then he'd gotten angry, Tarva had gotten... icy, and Janiik had sent them to look at his ailing daughter.

As her father had claimed, Anya wandered in a dream. Even waking, Gann had felt its edges curl eagerly about him. It had been rather disquieting – it was clear, now, that the young girl was very nearly as strong a dreamwalker as he was, and she had trapped herself in a dream of her own making... but the really uncomfortable part was the simulacrum of him she'd constructed to keep her company.

When she'd sighed for her love, "Sir Gannayev," even Okku had cast a jaundiced eye on him; he wouldn't have been surprised if Safiya had fireballed him and Kaelyn cheered her on. Tarva, of course, hadn't said a thing, but her face had been more than usually inexpressive.

In summary, Gann was less than enthusiastic about returning to beg hospitality from the farmer.

"You there! Trespassers!" The voice sounded out of the twilight, curt and unamused.

"Oh, good," Gann muttered. "So glad to see Janiik remembers us." He shuffled to the back of the group as Tarva led them to the gap in the palisade.

"You'd be pretty difficult to forget," Tarva's soft voice floated through the darkness.

"That's not a compliment," Safiya told him, as Tarva tried to talk the farmer into providing them with a place to sleep.

"Ah, the legendary cruelty of the Red Wizards." Gann laid his hand on his heart, although the gesture was fairly pointless in the gathering gloom. "You wound me."

"... three of us, now, have some dream-walking abilities. We will try to reach your daughter and bring her back to the waking world," Tarva promised the farmer, and then kept talking over his objections to Gann ever again entering under his roof, let alone Anya's dreams. "Two of us will walk with him – and surely you would not deprive a repentant young man the chance to make amends for his careless actions?" The heavy impact of a plate boot on his shin stopped Gann from voicing any objection to this cloying and inaccurate portrait – he _wasn't_ responsible for the girl's state – "Please, Janiik, I do believe that we can help her now."

There was a long moment of slightly tense silence, and then the grizzled farmer nodded, and opened the gate. Tarva cast a slightly stern look over her shoulder at Gann – _play along_ – and the strange little group followed Janiik into the low farm house, where Anya lay dreaming.

"The poor child," Skyla said, resting her hand on Anya's brow. "She wanders so far away."

"Oh, Sir Gannayev," the soft sigh, and the accompanying giggle, echoed through the room. Gann ignored the accusatory stare of Anya's father boring into the back of his head, and the less impressed looks of Okku and Safiya. Tarva's neutrality was very firmly in place, and she wasn't looking at him.

"Oh." Skyla said. "I see. This is your doing, hagspawn?"

"Yes!" Janiik practically hissed the word. "Ever since he spent a night here, ran his filthy claws through her mind –"

That was quite enough for him. "I told you that this 'Gann' she dreams of is _not-"_

Tarva's voice carried across them all without effort. "No." It wasn't the simple word, or the whiplash of authority in her voice that stilled them all. It was merely that she was the one in command – of herself, of the situation, of everyone in the room. "Arguing over who is, or who is not, to blame for Anya's plight will not help her. Janiik, I understand your distrust of Gann, but I ask you to place it aside for now. We _will_ enter Anya's dream, if it can be done, and return her to you. Now, we will need to discuss how to do this." She paused, her eyes slightly narrowed, and looked at Gann.

Ah, those eyes.

It was only after she'd turned to Skyla that he realised she'd been trying to tell him something, and he'd been too busy drowning in her eyes to pay any attention. If loving her was going to make him an utter idiot... well, then, welcome idiocy.

"Skyla, you're the most experienced dreamwalker here; how do you want to proceed?"

Tarva was deferring to _her_? When he had guided her through all of the Coven's dreamscapes, after the dream they'd shared together –

\- and that was it, she had been trying to apologise for the more diplomatic choice of asking Skyla for guidance.

Well, then.

Skyla pursed her lips. "You are reasonably practised with your skills, hagspawn?"

"That is _understatement._ "

"I'll take that as a yes, then. And you, Tarva... you never did explain how you could walk in dreams. I can tell that it isn't an innate talent for you... and if we are to venture into the dream of a girl whose talent is so strong, I had best know."

"The spirits of Rashemen have gifted her with the Dreamer's Eye and Voice," Gann said after a moment, rather proud. The half-drow might have had decades more experience than him to practice dreamwalking, but she couldn't best the shaman on this front.

"Are you sure?" Skyla seemed more than a little taken aback. As she should be. "The Eye is rare, the Voice incomparably rarer, and both, bestowed on a foreigner... I've never heard of such a thing before." Tarva shrugged slightly in response. "Even so, that shouldn't be enough to allow you to dreamwalk."

"I was also given a Hag's Eye in the Sunken City," Tarva said.

That really surprised the dreamer. "Given? Freely? Hags do not surrender their Eyes."

"The circumstances were... exceptional," Tarva said, exchanging a glance with Gann. All it took to make his heart clench almost painfully within his chest. "But that doesn't really matter at the moment; we need to find Anya. I'm no expert, not like you two, but I'll come with you. If..." and this was soft, addressed only to him, "if you'll help me."

"Always," he whispered in response, then realised that the half-drow could hear them both perfectly, and was looking at them with surprise, and then with comprehension. He couldn't say the same thing for Tarva; if her impassive mask betrayed any emotion at all, it was the faintest hint of that puzzlement she'd shown after the Wall...

... and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, after all.

"Well." Tarva ran her hands through her midnight hair. "Are we ready, then?"

"I am getting rather tired of standing over your unconscious body, little one."

"Just think of how many night watches Gann and Tarva owe us," Safiya answered the bear. "Besides, I don't think they need us this time."

"We may be some time," Skyla explained to the farmer. "Go to your rest; I will come to you as soon as she is freed." She smiled. "I am a parent, too; I know how you are suffering now."

And then there was darkness, and the steady breathing of four dreamwalkers softening into sleep...


	43. Again Anya

... Gann opens his eyes to the sight of the familiar spiral path, the mist that swirls about his ankles tinged with faint pink. It's scented – the mark of a strong dreamer indeed – but the mixture of roses, jasmine and warm sugar is far too strong to be pleasant; far stronger than it was the last, and only time, he stepped into her dream. The half-drow is nearby, regarding him with curiosity.

"You are very nearly as good as you believe you are. Where is Tarva?"

"She learns fast," Gann says, "but this is still only the second dream she has walked." He reaches out, calls her to him. A faint, shimmering outline of her form appears, silver and blue-black, then grows gradually more solid as she finds her way into Anya's dream.

She sneezes, suddenly and violently, and nearly drops her scythe. "Dearest gods, what is that _smell_?"

"Shall we go find out?" asks Skyla, and leads them around the first curve of the spiral. Two voices rise into audibility; the first is immediately familiar, even if the only thing they've heard Anya say is his name. The second... takes Gann an instant to place, because it's his.

"Oh, Sir Gannayev!" He's very sick of hearing that by now.

"Yes, my dearest Anya?"

"Nothing. I simply love saying your name."

"Poor child," Skyla sighs.

"And it pleases _my_ ears to hear it, my love." They round the final curve, and there Anya is, with her dream-version of him kneeling at her feet, looking up at her with utter adoration on his face. It's a little horrifying. "Anya... I love you. I am only whole when you are around!."

"I do believe it is the taste of bile that's rising in my throat. I may be ill, stand away." Tarva simply shakes her head at his comment, her lips pursed. He can't read her expression at all.

"What? Who is there?" The dreamscape and 'Sir Gannayev' flicker slightly as Anya startles at the interruption of her dream. Her dream-lover is instantly (too quick for a real person. Is she so far enmeshed in her delusion that she has blinded herself to that?) on his feet, facing them, sweeping Anya to safety behind him.

"Stand back, my love. I will protect you from this..." 'Sir Gannayev' sneers, wrinkling his nose. It's an ugly expression. "...this half-blooded mongrel."

"Mongrel?" Oh, this was really too much. To be insulted thus by the girl's creation of him – "What does that make you, a half of a half?"

"A quarter," Tarva suggests, her voice slightly unsteady. She turns away from him, from the scene in front of them, and Gann knows a moment's doubt – she has always stood beside him before – and then he sees her face drop to her hands, and her shoulders begin to shake. Soundlessly, she is _laughing._ Laughing as if this confrontation of doppelgangers in the mind of a dreaming girl is the only funny thing she has ever seen – it irritates and warms him in equal measure.

Just whose side is she on, anyway?

"Gannayev?" Anya asks, looking from one to the other. "How can there be two of you?"

Skyla steps forward, her voice kind and firm. "Anya, the Gannayev who stands with you is naught but fantasy shaped from your own mind. The longer he persists, the further he will draw you from reality."

"He also has terrible fashion sense, and the nose is all wrong," Gann sniffs, hearing the acceleration in Tarva's laughter.

Skyla shakes her head and lowers her voice to hiss at the two who entered the dream with her. "This is no joking matter, and you are not helping."

"I'm sorry. You're right," Tarva murmurs, and turns back to them after a moment, her face almost composed save for the dancing light in her eyes, and a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. It's a beautiful thing to see, Gann thinks, even if it's slightly at his expense. She addresses the dreaming girl entirely seriously. "Anya, it's time for you to wake. Your father is worrying."

"No! This is my home, where I may be with my true love without Father seeing. He doesn't understand what Gann and I share."

The fake Gann studies them carefully, while the real one stares back at him. The nose is crooked, the outfit is terrible, his hair's a mess... this disgusting parody of himself simply cannot be allowed to persist. "Anya," says 'Sir Gannayev', "I believe this _thing_ is here to harm us. Stand away; I shall handle this."

"If we must fight to settle this, then we shall," Gann replies. It would be quite satisfying to rip this abomination apart by spell or fill it with arrows...

"Don't be a fool," Skyla says. "You've done enough harm to her already, and I will not permit you to now fill her dream with violence."

"Peace, children," Tarva says, and moves past them. "Anya, you may be right, and your Gann may be the true one."

"Of course he is!"

Tarva steps closer to Anya, takes her hand. Both Ganns watch. The false one with a blank look, the real one studying the incongruity of the picture: the taller Rashemi girl, a flower in her hair and a vapid smile on her lips, clad in a lovely, impractical gown, facing the small half-elf in full plate, with scythe and expressionless face. A night's flirtation, and the woman he had, ever so gradually, come to love...

"How may we know your true love?" Tarva asks, and the girl's face lights up.

"He comes to me in the night, walking in my dreams. He's more handsome than any man I've ever seen, and he tells me that I am beautiful. His sweet voice fills my soul with a thousand burning words of love."

Skyla is looking at him very hard. Gann ducks his head slightly. That was an accurate description of the dream he'd shared with her the night her father had offered him hospitality. He _had_ entered her dream, flattered and flirted – but no more. She was barely more than a child. He had never intended for her to fixate on him so, or to rouse her powers as a dreamwalker before time.

But it had happened all the same.

"Oh, Anya," Tarva says. "Words, just words."

They had been. A pleasant way to pass a night, the words said easily and forgotten quickly. Gann shook his head. He had amused himself, and trapped her in a prison of her own making.

"Lies! I love you, Anya! I am only whole when you are around!" 'Sir Gannayev' says. Revolting, unimaginative, and he'd said exactly the same thing before.

"See?" Anya says, and snatches her hand away from Tarva. "Just because you're old and ugly and nobody loves you..."

Tarva sighs. "All of that _may_ be the case," and Gann pushes down the need to hold her close and tell her the truth, "but that doesn't change anything. Listen, Anya, you say you know Gann by his words of love. Well, let these two Ganns engage in a contest, and we'll agree that whoever speaks more eloquently is the real Gann."

"A contest?" Anya clasps her hands to her breast, starry-eyed. "Oh, yes!"

Tarva glances over her shoulder; after a moment, Skyla nods her approval of the scheme.

It would certainly serve to differentiate the true Gann from the fake. There's only one problem.

"No," Gann says, with conviction he's rarely felt before. He will not address more empty words to Anya, not with Tarva standing there, especially not after the Rashemi girl has so insulted her.

"No?" Tarva asks. "You're going to let a shadow of you win – one that has already repeated itself? You could best him easily."

"Of course I _could_ – but I won't." Her dark eyes search his face, and he isn't sure what she sees there, but after a long moment, she nods.

"As you wish, Gann. Well. We need a plan B. Gann, Skyla?"

Gann shakes his head, and the half-drow frowns. "The root problem here is not Gannayev – although he certainly hasn't helped – but the way the child's powers have been forced into full blossom before she was ready for them; before she learnt to distinguish between dreams and reality. I think... I think I can help there. If she'll listen to me."

They turn back to the girl and her dream-lover. "See?" Anya says. "Sir Gannayev is real."

"Of course I am. That preening popinjay there is the lie." Gann raises his eyebrows at the slur. Interesting vocabulary.

"It would appear that you are right," Skyla says.

"What are you doing? Don't give him any more reality, or we're in trouble," Gann hisses under his breath. The point was to make her acknowledge that _other_ Gann as the false one. The woman merely casts a scornful look his way.

"Your Gannayev can dreamwalk – let him do so now."

"She's already dreaming!" Gann protests, and Tarva elbows him in the ribs. No light nudge, not when she's fully armoured.

"You said she was powerful. Trust her."

At Skyla's instruction, Anya closes her eyes. "Now, child, imagine an empty field. No Gann to be seen anywhere; you are by yourself."

"But I am right h-" and 'Sir Gannayev' is gone.

Skyla smiles, and her voice is very gentle as she says, "Open your eyes, Anya."

"Oh! Where is he?"

"Right here," Tarva says. "Well, the real Gann is, anyway."

"Oh, I see," Gann murmurs. Very clever. All within her dream responds to a dreamwalker's will – except another dreamwalker. Now Anya can see –he can see it dawning on her – that her cherished 'Sir Gannayev' was nothing but illusion, but that the three who intruded on her idyll are not.

Skyla explains this to the girl, as she amuses herself by popping 'Sir Gannayev' in and out of existence. It's fun to watch.

Then she addresses him, a world of longing in her eyes. "So you were... you were never really here?"

"No, Anya, I was not."

"And you don't... you don't love me?"

He... hadn't expected her to ask that. He swallows, feeling three pairs of eyes on him. "I'm sorry, Anya, but no. I do not."

She sniffs, trying to hold back tears. "I've been such a fool, then. I suppose... I suppose it's time to wake up." And she fades away.

Skyla sighs. "I shall cross into her father's dream and tell him his daughter is safe. I think you had best not come, hagspawn."

"I can think of few things I would dislike more," Gann says, the dreamscape beginning to dissolve about them as Anya comes up to full consciousness...

... and they woke in the darkness of the farmer's cottage. Rather than go fumbling for a candle, Gann spoke the words of a light spell. The soft glow illuminated the three of them, and the still sleeping form of Skyla Avolov.

"Oh!" Anya said. "How strange... Everything's so bright, and there's some sort of..."

"Fringe around objects and people?" Gann said. "It is the fabric of dreams you are seeing. In time, with more practice, you will see it only when you wish. Anya... I am sorry, truly. You are very strong, and I should have seen it -"

The door flew open, letting in a flood of rosy light – dawn already? – and one anxious father, who was running. "Anya, Anya, my precious girl," the words fell from him as he ran into the room to scoop his daughter up in his arms.

"Father!"

Skyla stirred as Gann got to his feet, finding this reunion a little awkward. Grave and silent, Tarva didn't seem at all bothered. Then again, very few things did ruffle her.

Still holding his daughter, Janiik turned to face them. "Skyla has explained the circumstances to me... it seems I owe you an apology for my words – and actions – before. They were spoken in haste, out of the love a father bears his child."

He hadn't expected that, either. "I – I accept your apology and – I ... meant no harm."

"Are we ready to leave?" Safiya asked, from the doorway, dressed now in the plain, hooded robe that hides her Red Wizard affiliation. Beside her, Okku rumbles a greeting.

"Remarkably impatient, Safiya," Tarva said, but they began to say their goodbyes anyway. Some of them were... remarkably awkward.

"When you reach Mulsantir, send my granddaughter to me," Skyla was saying to Tarva.

"You're not returning with us?"

The half-drow shook her head. "Anya will need many months of teaching to reach her full potential, and I can provide that. My granddaughter is also about Anya's age, and I think they will be good friends."

"That was settled remarkably quickly," Tarva said, a slight smile tugging at one corner of her mouth.

"I fooled myself with the idea of you, didn't I?" Anya asked, softly, as her father spoke with Skyla.

"Don't..." Gann said, fumbling about for the right words. "Dreams are... difficult to master, and if there is any blame in this matter, it should not be borne by you. Let it pass. The fields of the sleeping world are yours to travel."

"But you won't be there," Anya said to him, hurt and resignation warring for control.

"No," he answered. "Not the Gann you imagined." Feeling he owed her this much, he reached out and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. "Farewell, Anya."


	44. Kaelyn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe that the scene in the Veil that Gann witnesses is actually kinder than the one I'd originally planned? Also, since I couldn't think of another small, tenacious animal with no voice, I stole the otak from the Earthsea books by Ursula Le Guin. Go read them, if you haven't.

Although the aftermath of Coveya Kurg'annis still hung over their heads, the group that returned to Mulsantir were fast recovering their customary spirits. There were awkward moments, of course; times when Safiya pestered Gann (but never Tarva) for answers he had no wish to provide, times when Tarva was silent and uncommunicative, and that one incident when Okku tired of Kaji's chatter, and managed to swing his ponderous head to catch the homunculus in his jaws. When the bear god, apparently in earnest, had threatened to bite her pet in half, Safiya had kept her cool and attempted to reason with him for all of thirty seconds.

Then she'd started weaving an extremely powerful binding spell, Kaji had shrieked as Okku's teeth bit tighter into his body; Gann had pushed Safiya off-balance and shattered her spell, Tarva had thumped Okku on the nose, making him bellow and let the homunculus free –

And a silence that was more than merely awkward had persisted between the Red Wizard and the telthor spirit until Tarva had talked them both into apologising.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Tarva pushed open the Veil's heavy door, letting the clashing of flimsy steel foils and the ringing of voices escape into the street.

"Amber, your line is: 'Dastard! How dare you invade my dream?' With conviction, now."

"Vesper, do you have to include that word in every single play? I feel like a moron each time you make me say it."

"Yes."

"Ugh. Fine. Dastard!-"

The duel was not going well, Gann saw as they entered; Magda waved at them, and pulled an apologetic face. "Keep going, and keep your guard up, Wallace!" No sign of Kaelyn anywhere.

"They did it," Safiya said, shaking her head – carefully, in order not to dislodge her hood. "They actually did it. Even for thespians, that's ridiculous."

"Unlike yourself, the good folk of the Veil can recognise a classic tale when they hear one," Gann answered, not even attempting to suppress a smirk. The events and revelations of their trip to the Sunken Coven had completely driven the play at the Veil from his mind; to return and find them rehearsing it was a pleasant surprise indeed. "I must try and attend opening night, if our fair leader sees fit to release me from my duties – or would care to accompany me."

One corner of Tarva's mouth quirked upward. "I really don't think I could be trusted around you under those circumstances, Gann. I fear I would surrender to my basest instincts."

Ah, he'd missed this Tarva, conspicuously absent ever since she'd discovered her curse hungered for the souls of her companions. She sounded provocative, but if he took that bait, she'd turn it around on him in an instant. Intentionally walking into her trap was the least of what he would do to kindle that spark of mischief in her eyes, to see her wry half-smile. "And what would you do, precisely?" he asked, employing his most suggestive tone.

"Probably throw rotten fruit at you."

"Traditionally, one throws rotten fruit at the actors," Safiya interjected. "The correct etiquette for expressing criticism of the egomaniac who based the entire play on himself is much less defined."

"Egomaniac?" Gann protested mildly. "An egomaniac thinks only of himself and what he wants. How is that an accurate description of one such as I? I think of others; I think of how I bring beauty into their lives simply by being near them."

Okku growled at him. "Hagspawn, you delight in trying my patience."

"Yes, Old Father Bear, I do."

"Actually, Gann has a point," said Tarva. "He's not an egomaniac: he's a narcissist."

Safiya pursed her lips, then nodded. "Now that you mention it, I can easily envisage Gann starving to death beside a pond, unable to tear his eyes away from his own reflection."

"Could anyone ask for a sweeter death?" he replied, with an exaggerated flick of his hair.

"You're impossible, Gann," Safiya said, giving up.

"In this great multiverse, as Tarva has said, all things are possible. I am merely improbable – and that, dear Safiya, is quite a different matter."

"I wander whither whimsy wills," Wallace proclaimed from the stage.

"Enough!" Magda shouted. "For the sake of my poor ailing liver, stop. Wallace, you're supposed to be wooing Amber, not simpering at her. Vesper, you have to change that last line – I don't care how much you like it – or our audience will be howling in the aisles. Ten minutes, and then we'll try the confession scene." The dwarf matron turned to them, rolling her eyes. "I swear, one day the ale will stop numbing the pain, and then I will march off the Docks in full plate."

"No, you won't," Tarva said. "You're a dwarf; it's racially impossible for you to abuse good armour that way. Besides, you love all this too much."

"Aye," Magda admitted. "Aye, I do. It's good to see you safely back, after all this time. Your angel friend's been fretting something terrible."

"All this time? How long has it been? And where is Kaelyn?"

"Near a month," Magda said. Well. He'd certainly lost track of the 'days' in the Skein. Judging by the muted shock on Safiya's face, he wasn't the only one to fare so badly. "Kaelyn doesn't spend much time with us here; I think we make her a little uncomfortable. My guess, you'll find her with her siblings on the Temple grounds."

"My thanks, Magda," Tarva said, and turned to leave. The others followed her – save for Gann, who had a vested interest in seeing just what the troupe of the Veil had done to his idea.

"All right, you louts!" Magda ordered her actors at a volume many a drill sergeant would have envied. "Back to work. This is one of the most important scenes in the entire play, so _get it right._ Our dreamwalker Reves has been cornered and attacked by the nightmares. Avanya comes to his rescue and drives them off, but is mortally wounded. Places!" On stage, Amber languished in Wallace's arms. "Vesper, cue them."

"The nightmares flee. Avanya sways, pressing a hand to her side, and nearly falls; Reves catches her, and says-"

"Even to impress me, that is going entirely too far," Wallace said. The words sounded light, but the absolute shock and denial he projected were not.

"I'll remember... that," Amber's voice was weak with pain, but carried all the same, "next time I'm... dying."

"No! I forbid you to die, my love, do you hear me?"

"... love?"

"Yes," he said, the simple word invested with both tenderness and a terrible fear. "You are my love and all my joy, and – oh, Avanya, I hadn't wanted to tell you like this. Knowing the empty words I have spoken to so many others, I feared you could never believe me-"

"I... do," she said, slowly, a smile flickering into life on her face. "And I l-"

The chill hand of death silenced forever the words he had longed to hear her say. Clutching the empty shell of the woman he loved, he stared out from the stage, a stark-eyed figure of grief.

And then Magda burst into applause, shattering the spell. "Now, we're getting somewhere! Vesper, I think-"

Gann left the theatre. They had shown their inclination to butcher his idea when he'd first given it to them and he supposed he shouldn't be surprised... but – really?

"Gann, there you are." Tarva called to him from a nearby market stall, Safiya, Okku and three members of the Menagerie clustered around her. "Did you forget how to open the door again?"

"Nothing of the kind," he replied, with great dignity. "I simply had a small... narcissistic moment."

"Nothing small about your narcissism, Gann," Safiya shot back.

Kaelyn, of course, ignored the byplay. "Gannayev. I see Ilmater has blessed you."

"Really?" Well, that would distract him nicely. "How kind of him. And what form has this blessing taken?"

"That hurt which has shaped you, which has driven you for so long... it has begun to heal," Kaelyn said, her eyes soft with sympathy. "I am gladdened to see it. I can only surmise that this is linked to whatever you encountered in the city of the hags, after I parted from you."

"This isn't really the place to discuss this; perhaps back in the Veil?" Tarva interjected. "Forgive me, Efrem, Susah."

"Nothing to forgive," the Stag said. "We were on our way to the Temple to visit the Otak in any case."

"What's an otak?" Tarva asked.

"The boy whom I took to the temple," Kaelyn answered, as they began to walk. "He is of the Menagerie now, and he bears the mantle of the Otak."

Safiya laughed. "Fitting, but that doesn't actually help her. Tarva, the otak's an animal a little smaller than a cat, and something between... oh, a dog and a mongoose. Or a ferret. They're proverbially stubborn, but the thing everyone knows about otak – if they're from around here, anyway – is that they're voiceless."

"I crossed paths with a mother otak and her kits once. She sliced a chunk of flesh from my nose. When they have den or kits or defend, they are worthy fighters," Okku rumbled. "Little one, I have no wish to listen to you two-leggers chattering like rooks. I shall wait outside Mulsantir's gates for you."

"There is also a matter I wish to attend to," Gann said. "I do not believe it will take long, and I will rejoin you as soon as I can."

"Sounds urgent," Safiya commented.

"You might say that."

"Very well, then," Tarva said, and slapped Okku affectionately on the shoulder. "You'll find us backstage at the Veil when you're ready, Gann."

He wandered the little market stalls, his mind just as much on the conversation at the Veil as on the item he sought. He was absent from one, albeit by his choice, and the other seemed nowhere in sight. He trusted Tarva to give a fair account of all the events, and, honestly, for some of it he would prefer not to be present. All the same, he _was_ curious.

The other curious thing was just how difficult it was to find what he wanted. The traders shook their heads and sent him to the smith. The smith, with a quizzical expression, said that somebody at the berserker lodge might know; the belligerent badger-spirit that guarded the lodge refused to believe his projected reassurances and allow him within. He was reluctantly considering giving up, until a chance phrase from a passer-by sparked a memory in his mind.

He didn't like the idea much, but returning to Tarva empty-handed... no. He trudged up the hill, where the witches gave him a rather jaundiced welcome. It grew rather warmer when he handed over a staggering amount of gold – but he did not begrudge it. Gann hurried back to the Veil, trying to find the balance point for the awkward, unaccustomed weight. She made it look so easy...

Wallace and Lothario were duelling now. Gann noted, with some amusement, that seemingly-delicate Amber was better than either of them. He nodded a greeting to Magda and slipped backstage.

"He sided with the Red Woman – probably not because her argument was more compelling, but for considerations of gallantry."

Even if their voices hadn't carried, he could have found them easily, or at least, Tarva. That fierce, insatiable Hunger was impossible to mistake; so strong, so empty. With a horrible lurch in the pit of his stomach, Gann counted back over the days. She had fed shortly before they'd met his mother, and not since. She would not take risks with their lives, but still... he was concerned.

He leaned his gift against a convenient wall, and went in.


	45. Again Bishop

"We stood before the Wall of the Faithless," Tarva was saying, perched up on one of Lienna's crafting benches. Her scythe rested in one corner, a large chunk of wood missing from its handle, where he'd hacked it away in a berserk fury. "Come over, Gann." Her back was to him; he could swear he made no sound that her own speech had not covered, and neither Safiya nor Kaelyn had even seen him. Shaking his head, the hagspawn took a seat against a wall, stretching his legs out ahead of him.

"I didn't like this part much," he commented.

"Surprising," Tarva said, "since you came out of it looking like a hero."

"That's hardly a rare occurrence," he said lightly – but he had heard, and would treasure, the implied compliment. "I am less accustomed to dealing with your unpleasant former comrade and with walls of screaming souls."

Tarva simply sighed. "Gann, you have no idea how to keep things in order."

"And you lack any flair for drama."

"True, but irrelevant."

"And both of you are too busy flirting to satisfy my curiosity, and that's unacceptable," Safiya interrupted. Gann shot her as poisonous a look as he could manage on no warning – he needed to work out how to speak to Tarva, not to have Safiya forcing the issue or frightening the half-elf into closing herself off to him. The great silence that had followed that dream they had shared, and his kiss, had been bad enough.

Safiya frowned in response, and Tarva had apparently decided to ignore that comment completely. Her hands were locked around each other, though, and their knuckles were stark white. Gann wasn't sure if that was a reaction to what Safiya had said, or what she was about to say. "Do you remember what I told you of Bishop?"

"The ranger, the traitor who sabotaged the gates of your keep. He stood with Black Garius, and you slew him," Kaelyn said.

"Yes," Tarva said, the word slow and apparently difficult to voice. "He was there, in the Wall."

"That _Wall_ ," Safiya muttered, just loud enough for of them to hear, and with such vehemence that it attracted all eyes.

"Safiya?" Tarva asked, which apparently was the first indication the Red Wizard had that she'd spoken aloud.

"Oh." It was the first time Gann had ever seen her at a loss for words. "Um." Safiya looked at them, visibly gathering her courage. "Tarva, you've told us so many bits and pieces of your life, even when... why didn't you tell me it was this hard?" The half-elf shook her head slightly; she hadn't understood. Safiya sighed. "I have... dreams – no, nightmares – of that Wall."

"Really?" Gann asked, caught off-guard. "Well, that makes three of you."

"What?"

"While I do not possess the famed intellect of the Red Wizards, I count very well up to three," Gann informed the women. "Tarva has dreamt of the Wall of the Faithless, as has Kaelyn, and, apparently, you as well."

"How do you know this, Gannayev?" the Dove's soft voice asked.

"Because I peeked, naturally." He shrugged off Kaelyn's slightly indignant gaze. "It's what I do."

Safiya was looking thoughtful. "That implies... you hadn't walked in mine? I don't know whether to feel relieved or slighted."

"Not that I didn't try, but all three of you ladies have... _difficult_ dreams. Tarva, as I may have mentioned, your dreams were not easy to enter. The fact you weren't sleeping much didn't help, either." Tarva nodded slightly; she'd heard this before. "Kaelyn, I have barely walked in yours at all; they are so strong that they drive you, waking or sleeping, and such dreams are best avoided by a lone dreamwalker." The Dove appeared both pleased and confused by this. "Safiya... I only peeked at your dreams once. They are... unlike anything I have encountered before." He paused, trying to find a way to phrase it that was both flattering to Safiya and did not make him sound like a coward. "They are... fractured, splintered, full of overlapping voices and fragments of images. I found them fascinating... but disquieting."

Tarva huffed out a breath that was not quite a laugh. The shadows and tension of her sharp face were almost dispelled, now that they were no longer discussing the Wall of the Faithless. "What that means is that he was scared of them."

His beloved was far too perceptive. He shook his head, drawing a mock air of injured dignity about him. "Such slander and aspersions to cast upon me! I resent that, Tarva."

"I don't doubt it. And some here may well resent the fact you walked in their dreams. Life is hard, isn't it?" She dismissed the subject after a moment. "If your dreams are like mine, Safiya, you are within the Wall." Tarva's eyes, unfocused, stared into the distance. "Stretched, torn, broken. There are millions of presences about you, suffering as you are. Their screams blend with yours, into one sound, the very voice of the Wall..."

"Yes," Safiya said softly.

"I know that sound," Kaelyn echoed. "It called me from Celestia."

Gann recognised one of the rare times where he really should remain silent, and, even rarer, chose to do so.

"I found Bishop there. In the Wall. Suffering that. Like some..." Words failed the half-elf; her head hung low, curtained by her dark hair. Her words were soft, but clearly audible, and just as clearly heart-felt. "He was not a good man, I always knew that. He despised and fought with even other one of my companions, even – or especially – Casavir. He was vicious, dangerous. He had tortured and murdered. But he doesn't deserve that."

"Why would you consort with such a man as that?" Kaelyn was shocked, and Gann wasn't surprised. He wanted to hear Tarva answer that himself. She had defined Bishop as "a treacherous piece of scum", clearly accurately, but the picture she painted now was far darker.

"The others never understood, either. There were... several reasons," Tarva said slowly. She wasn't looking at them. "Firstly, I needed him to save Shandra's life. I didn't have the necessary skills to track the githyanki. He did, and he knew the territory. After Shandra was safe... I knew what he was, and I chose not to send him away. Perhaps I should have, but I was fighting a losing battle against a being infused with the power of the Shadow Weave, a being who was, as far as I knew, immortal – and I dared not turn away anybody who was willing to aid me."

That much was nothing new to Gann; she'd said as much to Casavir in that dream. Both Safiya and Kaelyn had nodded, the Dove a little as though she regretted having to agree. Tarva hadn't finished speaking, though. Her words were even slower now, even softer... she sounded – ashamed?

"And we were... akin." Surely she did not mean that – she was nothing like that! Kaelyn's wings were flared, her black eyes blazing, ready to defend Tarva's moral integrity even against herself. For once, Gann found himself in full agreement with the priestess. She opened her mouth to protest, but Tarva continued speaking. "Reflections of each other, perhaps. We both came from small villages in the Mere, we were both orphans. There was blood on both our hands.

"I understood him – although, in the end, not as well as I thought I did... I knew his restlessness and his longing for freedom, the way walls and ties stifled him, because I felt the same way. Lord Nasher piled duties and titles and responsibilities on top of me until I was drowning in them, until I thought I'd go mad if I couldn't escape. Then I'd see Bishop, and that would remind me where that road led. And I stayed.

"He was what I could have been, what I feared I would become. A warning, an example, even an alter-ego..." her voice trailed off, her eyes staring into the past.

"And so you were horrified to see him in the Wall," Gann gently completed the sentence for her, unsure what he thought of what she'd said. It filled in blanks in the story, in her reaction to Bishop – she clearly still identified with him in some strange way – but there was more, if she would tell it.

And he completely rejected the notion that she had anything more than surface coincidences in common with the traitorous ranger.

"Yes... It didn't feel like a dream."

"It wasn't _just_ a dream," Gann told her. Her face came up, and her eyes fixed on his. He hid his shock, and heard the soft gasp that indicated Safiya hadn't been so guarded; Tarva could hardly have looked more haggard if she'd been a spirit. He chose his next words with immense care. "When we crossed through the portal, I was uncertain. I have never walked in a dream so like reality. Bishop, too, seemed no dream-figure; not only did he _feel_ as real as you or I, but I have seen your memories of him, and the man in the Wall was more than dream-shaping."

"Tarva –" Safiya interrupted, her voice low and urgent. "You don't have to share this."

The weapon master's head dropped again. "Yes, I do, because one of you might understand what happened better than I did, and I think it might be important." She took in a deep breath and began her slow recitation once more. "Well. He offered me a third mask fragment. When I reached out to take it, he seized my wrist and dragged me into the Wall with him."

Kaelyn made a soft sound of horror; Safiya hid her mouth behind her hand. Tarva kept talking, seemingly oblivious to all of them. "Not even as far as my elbow, but that was enough. I was in the Wall of the Faithless, and it... it has a voice, composed of all the souls within it, and it has an awareness of kinds. It's unimaginably ancient, and it's hungry. And it was aware of me. It... wanted to devour me." Tarva paused, and then made a horrible, choked little sound that was not laughter. "But at the same time, I... I was already in there, isn't that funny? The Wall was trying to consume me, but it already had..."

No wonder she had panicked, no wonder at all... And now she was reliving it, while he sat there, paralysed, staring like a heartless fool. Gann started to his feet, only vaguely noticing that Safiya had done the same thing -

"Tarva." Kaelyn's voice was calm and soothing – but urgent, the half-celestial ahead of both the shaman and the wizard. Her wings flared, stretching to their full span, and glowing with pale golden light. It felt like divine magic, but Gann didn't recognise it."It does not hold you anymore."

"Yes, it does," Tarva said, her voice calmer now, resigned. Gann couldn't see her behind Kaelyn's wings. "I don't know how, but it does. There's a part of me that's missing, and the Wall holds it. And if Gann hadn't been there, it would have swallowed me completely."

He could feel Safiya looking at him with newly-awakened respect, and ignored her in favour of trying to get past Kaelyn. "And what did he do?" the Dove asked, still speaking in the same, soft tone.

"He... cut me from the Wall," and now she sounded almost as usual, and the light of Kaelyn's wings was dimming. She slowly folded them, to reveal that Tarva was looking for him.

"There is more," he said, reaching for her hand. Her fingers closed about his without hesitation. He could see the speculative flicker of Safiya's eyebrow out of the corner of his eye, but either Tarva hadn't, or didn't care. Either way... "I don't think you heard Bishop say that the others imprisoned in the Wall were waiting for the Crusade to return."

"I didn't. Go on," Tarva said, the fierce pressure of her hand the best pain Gann had ever felt.

"Then someone – or some _thing_ – else spoke through him. I do not think I have all the words correctly," he admitted. He had been fighting too hard to free her to note them carefully. "He said that the Crusade had ended there, that the Wall hungered and drained everything away. That I had arrived there before my time, and that – that – " The words she had spoke suddenly chimed against the ones he remembered. "And that he'd already seen you, there in the Wall."

"Well," was all that Tarva said, but Gann could feel the tension in her, the way her breath shuddered in her throat – and beneath them both, the dark, constant pulsing of her Hunger. Safiya took her other hand, and Kaelyn stood immediately in front of Tarva, the disparate three united in their desire to help the half-elf.

"I told him that he was mistaken, and he replied," Gann paused, wanting to soften the words, not seeing how. He decided to hurry over it, "that you were only a mask, and that the god of the dead had seen us. Then I finally managed to drag you free, and he said no more." He looked up at her. If she wished to speak of how he had held and comforted her, it was for her, and her alone, to do.

"Masks and the Crusade. I wish I understood exactly what was going on," she sighed, and gently freed her hands from Gann's and Safiya's to pull the mask fragments from the recesses of her armour and lay them out beside her on the bench. First, Ahrraman's or Eveshi's, its colours shifting oddly, but favouring a greenish hue. The piece beside it was most often red, like the woman who had given it to Tarva. The last, as she fitted in place against the others, reflected a sickly, maggot-grey that reminded him of the Wall itself.

They stared down at the mask. Fringed about with stiff white hair, and marked with a pattern of white ovals, it seemed to have no eyeholes at all. The whole thing was oddly displeasing; it was even difficult to look at for long, repellent to the eyes.

Well, his eyes, at least. Then again, he was aware he possessed a more developed aesthetic sense than most.

"Tarva, if you like..." Safiya was uncharacteristically hesitant. "I can try to... to fix it." The half-elf nodded silently, and the Red Wizard wove her spell. Red and silver cords of light shot from her fingers and wrapped themselves around the mask, cinched tight, and tighter yet, to bind the pieces to one another – and relaxed. Safiya frowned, and the light of her spell brightened as she fed it more power. It flared painfully bright as the spell shattered, and when they could see again, Safiya was on the floor, rubbing her head.

"That has _never_ happened to me before."

"What happened?" Tarva asked, sliding down from the bench to give Safiya a hand up.

"It resisted me," Safiya explained what Gann and Kaelyn had already worked out, for the benefit of the entirely non-magical weapon master. "Very strongly, too. No inanimate object, no matter how magical, should have been able to do that... For that matter, few _people_ have that level of spell resistance. Just... completely impervious."

"I suggest we do not try that again," Gann said, as Kaelyn's spell bathed Safiya in golden light. "I suspect that an object so strongly imbued with dreams will only be made whole in dreaming."

"You could have mentioned that before," Safiya muttered.

"I didn't think of it before."

"Of course you didn't."


	46. The Sword of Gith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I am so ridiculously nerdy as to want recognition for it, I'll just mention that Gann's gift does exist in-game, and almost as described, although it actually has no enchantments.

"Well," Tarva said, resettling on the bench and hiding the mask fragments away again, appearing once more in control of herself. "Shall we continue?"

Gann had really almost forgotten that they were in the midst of recounting their time at Coveya Kurg'annis.

"Once we'd left... the Wall... behind us, we were finally in the presence of the Coven." Tarva paused there to exchange glances with him. How much did he wish her to tell them? The episode with Bishop had affected her deeply, as the vision of his mother had affected him; it seemed likely that she would exercise the same tact for both, giving a clear accounting of the facts, while glossing over the details. He nodded.

"Gann questioned the Coven about his mother. In response, they showed us his father's death."

"As Gulk'aush described it?" Safiya asked, horrified.

"That was a title the hags gave her, not her name," Tarva said, surprising Gann. Certainly, 'Gulk'aush' was not a name any hag would have been born with. But how did she know that? "I do not know if it was truly her name, but her lover called her Hevae."

Gann remembered, then. One of the small details, lost in the vision. "Yvae," he quietly corrected her pronunciation. That was a name. His mother's name.

"Yvae," Tarva echoed. "Yes, they showed all of it. Everything, just as she told Gann."

"Oh," Safiya said.

"I am sorry, Gannayev," Kaelyn said softly.

He shrugged one shoulder, and Tarva took up the tale again. "We were also able to gain other answers from the Coven – although I am not certain just how far we should trust them. The hags said that one of my former companions was not far from here, although he was – broken, not as I would recognise him. It was not... not Bishop. They also spoke of you, Safiya."

"Me?" Her eyebrows furrowed, drawing the tattooed skin into new and strange patterns. "How curious."

"They said... let me see. They said that your dreams were scattered, nauseating to look on–"

"That's not the way you phrased it, Gann."

"I am both more tactful than those hags, and possessed of a stronger stomach."

"You didn't mention 'prettier' that time," Tarva noted.

"I didn't think it needed to be said."

"Fair enough," Tarva said. "They referred to Lienna and Nefris as twins, Safiya, and they said that they were "more than two." And..." she hesitated here, "I don't know whether it was truth, or some trick of the dream, but Nefris... she was the same as the Red Woman, and the one who took the shard from my chest." Safiya opened her mouth to say something – looking almost appalled – but Tarva kept talking, faster than usual. "The hags showed us a vision of Lienna and Nefris, who'd come to the Coven to ask how to end the spirit-eater curse. The hags told them to find and speak to Myrkul, and Nefris said it could be done. They left together."

"And then?" Safiya asked eagerly.

"The hags begged for their lives," Tarva's voice was very cold.

"And you refused," Kaelyn said, with a faint note of condemnation.

"What they did to Gann's family was monstrous, and to flaunt it in his face like that was unforgiveable. I swore to see them dead, I am glad that they are, and I would kill them again," Tarva said, and Kaelyn blinked twice and remained silent. It was certainly a more spirited defence than she had offered Skyla Avolov. And also interesting – there was not a single person in the account she'd given of her life whose death she had not seemed to regret, and so this jubilation at the Coven's death was a little unusual.

"Well," Safiya said. "That's very clear. It sounds to me, Tarva, as though the Coven gave you no straight answers. What's our next move?"

"There are two, actually," Tarva said. "First, I think, the Death God's vault should be searched for that Gate – it appears to be linked to the spirit-eater as well as Kaelyn's Crusade, and I've not forgotten that I promised to help Kaelyn explore the Vault. After that, Safiya, we're going to your mother's Academy on the Thaymont."

"We are?" Clearly he'd missed a step somewhere. "And how are we going to do that?"

Tarva waved a hand vaguely behind her. What was in that direction?

Safiya grinned. "We ask Lienna's golem. How did you think my mother got here?"

"Thank you, Tarva," Kaelyn said. "I will go ask Okku if he wishes to join us."

"Tarry a moment, fair priestess," Gann said. "You wish to begin at once?"

"I cannot see any reason to delay," Kaelyn answered, "and many to press on." She looked at him. Gann felt that familiar uneasiness at her dark glance; impossible to tell what the cleric saw. "Or are you truly so blind to the way the curse devours Tarva, and how little time she may have left?"

Kaelyn slipped away as Safiya and Gann turned to look at the half-elf. She returned their gaze neutrally, but her lack of expression could not mask the changes he saw, now that he was looking for them.

"Kaelyn is remarkably tactless," Tarva said lightly. "You two look like you're seeing a ghost." The words died on the air.

"That statement is far more accurate than I'd like." There were lines and hollows in her face that had not been there when she'd entered his prison cell. Her full armour hid most of her, but Gann could see the subtle way her dark eyes had sunken in their sockets, and the added prominence of her cheekbones and wrists. She was no ghost, but her body was failing.

How had he missed it?

The sight crystallised one thing for him – one way or another, he would find some way to speak to her tonight. To tell her what she meant to him.

"Tarva –" Safiya said, very nearly pleading.

"I won't deny that it's taking a toll," the half-elf said, quietly, matter-of-factly, "but I'm a long way from giving up, and so should you be. Come on, we've a hidden temple of a dead death god to explore – doesn't that sound like fun?"

"Not exactly," Safiya replied. "Not compared to going home and seeing what Araman's done to my mother's academy."

"I'm sorry, Safiya," Tarva said, slipping down from her perch with a metallic clank. "I don't think the Vault will hold us long. Shall we?"

"A moment, Tarva, if you would," Gann said. "There is a small debt I wish to repay."

"Debt?"

Ah, she had forgotten. All the better. "Close your eyes for me," he commanded, and slipped around the corner. He saw Safiya's eyes go wide with surprise as he returned, and flicker between Tarva's scythe resting in the corner and the weapon master herself. "Now, raise your hands."

The half-elf obeyed, and Gann laid his gift across them. It looked balanced to him, but it tipped to one side. A faint smile curved her lips, as without even opening her eyes, Tarva shifted her hands to balance the weight.

"I said a scythe _handle_ , Gann. This has a blade attached to it."

"Really? What an amazing thing."

She opened her eyes. "You mean you didn't notice?" She reached up, and ran her hand over the curve of the blade. "I thought you more observant than that. Sharp, too," Tarva added, as the very point cut into her skin.

The scythe-blade kindled with green-gold light, accompanied by a surge of power and the sound of Safiya exclaiming.

"The witches never mentioned it was enchanted," Gann said as the light died.

"Not enchanted, Gannayev." Kaelyn had returned, Old Father Bear pacing at her side. "Blessed, by Chauntea herself. You did well to secure it for Tarva."

"Ah," Tarva sighed. "That's it. I really shouldn't accept this, Gann, but I'm going to."

"I am glad," he said simply.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Peace," Tarva told the priest's spirit. "Your sacrifice was not in vain. Cyric's followers did not breach the lower vaults."

"Peace..." the spirit echoed. "An impossible dream for the damned servant of a dead god."

"Not impossible," she said. "I think..." She turned, regarded her companions. "You had best retreat to the top of the stairs; I'm not certain if this will work."

"What is 'this', precisely?" Gann asked, but moved away with the others.

"I think I can grant him rest." She turned back to the priest. "I can _see_ ... I can't explain." The spirit-eater roused at her call, bursting forth from her all the fiercer for its starvation. Its tendrils flickered about her, and reached for him.

"No," her voice was weak, but her will was not. She forced the dark form to obey her, the Hunger bending toward the priest.

"Tarva, leave him!" Kaelyn called desperately.

"Would you rather it was you?" Safiya snapped. "She hasn't fed in days."

The Hunger whipped around the spirit, but did not touch him.

"That's not what she's doing." But what was actually going on, Gann wasn't sure... She was feeding, but not in any way he recognised. The priest's hold on the world was weakening. Or was it the world's hold on the spirit that faded?

"Thank you," the priest whispered, and disappeared in a flare of purest white light. That was not the spirit-eater's usual work.

"She freed him," Kaelyn murmured.

"It's not over," Gann said, feeling the seething ghosts of the furnace surround Tarva, and readying a spell. "And this has the potential to get very ugly." They whispered to her, begging her for rest, for mercy. The spirit-eater was reacting to being surrounded by so many spirits – he wasn't about to rush into the midst of them, and forestalled Okku, who had – but he could certainly help, if they attacked her.

Then two, more powerful than the others, came forth – the same two he had felt before, and he still couldn't quite overhear or understand what they said to Tarva. She still spoke her answers aloud, and he could almost reconstruct the other half of the conversation.

"Child, shall I grant you peace?" said Tarva. "Free from the furnace? What do you mean? I can grant them rest, if you wish. No. They have suffered long enough."

The Hunger reached out again, draining and disrupting the ties that held the ghosts to the furnace. Hundreds of the spirits, freed from their haunting, disappeared in that same white light that had claimed the priest.

Two dark shapes appeared among the luminescence, solid and malevolent. A wave of divine power emanated from Kaelyn, as she attempted to turn them; the scythe he had given Tarva burst into flame the colour of fields at harvest as she defended herself against the wraiths.

They were difficult opponents, strong and fast – but in the end, no real match for the five of them.

"A little warning would have been nice," Safiya said, trying to catch her breath.

"Sorry. I didn't expect that last bit," Tarva said, handing her scythe to the wizard, and bending down to rummage in the ashes of the furnace. "The Child said there was a key... oh, no."

She straightened, holding a sword that shone silver. A sword that Gann recognised.

"The Sword of Gith," Kaelyn breathed.


	47. The Betrayer

"No," Tarva said. She seemed almost... relieved. "No, this isn't it. Thank Chauntea."

"You do not wish to find your sword again?"

"It wasn't my sword," Tarva replied, dusting the ash from her hand before she took her scythe back from Safiya. "I don't know if I can explain it," she added as they trailed back through the stone corridors. "Hmmm. Well. Have you ever experienced a feeling of completion? That a weapon, or ... I don't know, a person, or an item perhaps, was a part of you? A part that had been missing, and now you were re-united, made one again?"

Okku grunted a blunt "No."

Kaelyn nodded, a slight smile gracing her lovely features. "I have experienced a hint of what you speak, when we met Susah and Efrem. If only Josu and Bekkah had been there, too, the whole Menagerie reunited, it would have been perfect."

Gann shook his head slowly. Oh, he could imagine such an emotion well enough, but that was as far as it went.

Safiya was silent for a long time, their footsteps echoing on cold stone, a curiously troubled expression on her face. Then she, too, nodded. "Of a kind... At least, I understand enough."

One corner of Tarva's mouth quirked upward, casting a bitter light over her face. "Well, it's not like that at all. Rather, it's exactly the opposite. The Sword of Gith wasn't the missing part of me; I was a missing part of the Sword. A flawed fragment, a shard, a piece valued only because without me, it could not be whole."

"Are you saying that the Sword of Gith possesses an awareness?" Safiya asked a question that would never have occurred to Gann, and that he did not consider particularly relevant. However, Kaelyn seemed equally keen to hear Tarva's reply.

"No. Well, not really." And now Tarva shook her head. "It had a kind of... drive. It wanted to be whole again. The shards called to each other, which was probably how the githyanki kept finding me. But an awareness, a single personality... the Sword didn't have that, at least until I reforged it. Then it did, of course. Mine."

"But how –" Safiya began to ask.

"I told you. I was part of the Sword. The heart of the blade, Zhjaeve said once, as well as its wielder. So my purpose became its own – to destroy the King of Shadows." Tarva shook her head as they arrived back where they'd met Kaelyn, and stood once more before the dark gate, a powerless imitation of the one the Coven had shown them. "I _hated_ that sword." She ran her hand over the door, and frowned slightly – well, on anyone else's face it would have been a slight frown. On Tarva, it was a glowering expression of ultimate displeasure.

She stabbed the sword into the door.

The sword disappeared. The door opened. Tarva turned back to them. "Shall we move on?"

They did, pressing deeper into Myrkul's Vault. They were attacked at every turn by his mummified priests, vampires, and other undead creatures even less pleasant to behold – or smell. Gann ran out of spells about the same time Kaelyn ceased calling her god to her aid; they simply followed Tarva. At a cautious distance, for the Hunger walked with her, snapping out to sever spirit from shell.

Kaelyn was muttering to herself, Okku was growling, and even Safiya looked concerned. "It comes down to this," Gann said quietly, as a wraith's shriek was suddenly cut off. "How much do you trust her?"

"I have complete faith in Tarva," Safiya replied, a touch acidly. "It's the spirit-eater I distrust." The half-elf, wreathed in the Hunger's dark form, disappeared around a corner; Gann hastened his steps to catch up with her.

There were no more undead spirits anywhere around, and the curse slowly oozed beneath her skin, seeming both more solid and more satisfied than he had ever seen it before. "Tarva, are you all right?"

"Define 'all right'," she answered, as she had, long ago, when Kaelyn had asked the same question.

"For now, 'uninjured and in control' will do. An ideal definition would include 'not the victim of a centuries-old curse', but we shall have to gloss over that part until we can make it true."

"And it's the 'in control' part you're currently fretting over. I don't blame you." That was addressed not only to him, but to all of her companions.

"I trust you, Tarva," Gann said, and caught the momentary softening of her face that was almost a smile. "I am simply concerned. To unleash your curse so freely is not like you. I fear it may undo all the control you have gained."

"To free undead from this world is a worthy goal – one I shared as Kelemvor's doomguide – but I do not believe that your curse is the best means to achieve it."

She looked at Kaelyn, and back at him. "It's not affecting my control, Gann – if anything, it takes more to simply devour the spirit's ties, and resist consuming the spirit itself. Perhaps attacking so many was wrong - but for the first time..." Tarva paused and shook her head. "This curse... I could consume all the spirits that have existed from one end of time to another, and still no know no rest from hunger. But this small relief is as close, I suspect, as I will come."

"Little one-" the great bear's head lifted, his pale eyes fixed on the half-elf. "The hagspawn spoke for all of us. We trust you."

"Now, that is the most frightening part of all," Tarva said, her head turned away from them. "I'm surrounded by people who are absolutely _insane_."

"And you fit in very nicely," Safiya said, her tone softer than befitted the brisk words. "Shall we press on?"

They had been almost there already. Just as the hags had shown it, the dark gate waited for them.

Kaelyn approached it reverently, her wings flaring out, and apparently unconcerned by the sense of something terribly wrong that exuded from it. "The Betrayer's Gate. I have looked for it for so long."

Gann had expected Safiya to rush to it, exclaiming out technical syllables, but the Red Wizard was silent, staring at the Gate and making no movement.

"Little one, I do not like that Gate. It offends my instincts, both as bear and as god." Okku sat down heavily at the head of the steps, beside Safiya.

"I don't like it, either," Tarva said, but followed Kaelyn towards the Gate. There were many things Gann would have preferred to do than approach that abomination, but he drifted after the weapon master and the cleric anyway.

Zealotry lit Kaelyn's black eyes, and she was murmuring to herself. Tarva regarded the Gate steadily, then reached out –

\- and laid the palm of her hand against it.

He felt it as she did – the Hunger roused, shuddering within her, not reaching forth to devour, but reacting as it never had before. Tarva was very still. More, Gann realised, she wasn't breathing.

"Tarva?" He reached out, grasped her shoulder. "Tarva, come back."

One endless moment, and then she blinked, and turned to look at him, her eyes very wide. "Gods."

"You are a very slow learner, Tarva," Safiya called out from the stairs, her voice waspish with relief. "After the rune stone and Lienna's operating table, I would have thought you'd realise that touching random objects is a _bad_ idea. What did you see this time?"

Tarva sat down against a nearby wall. "It was very clear, but not helpful. The spirit-eater wanted to go through the Gate. I've never wanted anything so badly. Then the Gate greeted me. I've had enough of being recognised by inanimate objects." She cast a wry glance upward, but Gann was still thinking on what she'd said before; generally, she drew a clear distinction between herself and her curse. He was worried, he was very worried. "They filled this room, the army Ahrraman spoke of – mortals, angels, undead and dragons, and they called me the Betrayer. They passed through the Gate, and were gone."

"Oh," Kaelyn exclaimed in soft wonder. "Tarva, this gives me such hope..."

"Kaelyn, it looks like a dead end to me. Unless we have another replica silver sword," Safiya said, as Gann offered Tarva a hand up. She looked up at him, and accepted; he pulled her up with a little more heft than was strictly warranted. He wouldn't have admitted it was merely a ploy – but it was exactly what it was.

She was off-balance, and reaching out to him to regain her balance. He bent his head, equally swift to help her and to murmur, low and heart-felt, "Don't scare me like that."

Okku was rumbling his laughter. "Spirit-eater, did Kaelyn tell me truth?"

"That depends what she told you," Tarva answered, stepping away from him, casting one faintly puzzled look over her shoulder. Yes. Tonight.

All the spirits grant him aid.

"On the hags' instructions, Tarva continued, "we're going to Safiya's academy – that's truth."

"That pleases me! After defending against so many Thayan invasions, I shall now invade Thay! It is not too late for me to muster an army, little one..." and now, the garish rainbow-furred bear god looked hopeful.

"Don't tempt me, Okku."


	48. Casavir

Asleep in the Veil, Gann is dithering. There are many dreams around him, including the only one he wants to enter, but a sudden attack of nerves holds him fast.

Part of him insists this is ridiculous: Gann-of-Dreams, afraid to enter a woman's dream and speak sweet words to her? The other, greater part, one whose existence he would have scoffed at and denied bare moons ago, knows that this is hardly the entire truth. He, a shaman – and a hagspawn, even if a ridiculously handsome specimen of that despised race - intends to enter the dream of a spirit-eater, a hero from across the world who distrusts words of romance and men who speak them, to tell her that he loves her – and that is something he has never done before, and isn't sure he has the words for.

When he regards it in that light, it's rather daunting.

And so Gann dithers.

Tomorrow, they test out Lienna's portals, and journey to Safiya's academy, a school filled with murderous wizards. Gann has never left Rashemen’s borders, and he knows of no spirits on the Thaymont. He entertains doubts on the matter, not that he would allow anyone to see them. And... he is dithering again.

Perhaps a calming influence would help...

He summons one of his earliest memories, and forms his dreamscape around it in broad, blurry strokes; more remembered sounds and scents than a clear image. The smell of heavy fur, almost musty in the confined space, mixes with warm milk and blood. The constant song that the snow-cat purrs to her nursing kittens, and the tiny mews with which they answer her, fill the small den. There is a faint, blue glow, too far away to even shape the darkness. The telthor at the den's entrance voices a low growl.

A memory of a far older, gentler time, when he was shepherded by the beasts of Rashemen, both dead and living; not a time he often chooses to recall or recreate. Even then, he could walk at will into the dreams of those around him – but speech and his own name came much later...

"Gann," a faint voice calls from the edges of his dream, one he would recognise if his ears were stoppered in wax. A beautiful sound, but not, at this moment, entirely a welcome one. He looks for her, and sees the hazy figure trying to find her way into his dream.

"I'm here, Tarva," he calls her to him. She must have gone to sleep intending to seek him out; she cannot dreamwalk without his mother's Eye resting against her brow, and that is not something one does accidentally.

That... pleases and concerns him in equal measure.

"Gann? Am I doing this correctly?" she asks as her form solidifies. "I can't see a thing."

"That is because there is no light here."

"That would do it," she says. "Darkness and the scent of blood? Somehow, I expected something more dramatic from you."

He chuckles. "I merely chose to relive an old memory." As if summoned – which, in a way, they are – two telthor snow-cats pad towards them, flooding the den with light. The ghostly blue glow reveals the reindeer fawn one drags in his jaws. He drops it in front of the mother, her white fur slashed in patterns of grey and black. The kittens are almost hidden against the thick fur of her belly. There should have been a splash of blue-grey skin among them – but he stands outside the memory now.

"She's magnificent," Tarva breathes. The blue light falls also on them both, shining on her armour, and dying his skin a deeper shade. She glances over her shoulder at him. "One of those who sheltered you after your mother was forced to abandon you?"

"Yes," he says simply. "One of the first, I think." After sniffing over the kittens, the telthors bump noses with the snow-cat and retreat. The darkness closes about them once more.

"I'm sorry," Tarva says, and the words surprise him. Why should she apologise? "I didn't mean to intrude. Well, actually, I suppose I did, but this can wait, if you prefer."

Ah. "No, no," he says. "I could have kept you out if I wished, but it is only simple justice for the times I have walked in your dreams without invitation." She is silent, and so he adds, "You are always welcome in my dreams."

"Well. Even if I came to ask a question you may not wish to answer?" Tarva asks.

He ponders this a moment. "Even then. I would, however, demand an equally awkward question in return."

"We did try something of the kind before," Tarva concedes, "and I suppose it's only fair. Would you prefer to ask or answer first?"

"To answer, I think, but not here." Where, then, should he take her?

"May I?" she asks, and he surrenders control of the dreamscape to her without a word. Fumbling slightly, she dissolves and re-forms it slowly, building her dreamscape piece by piece...

... It begins with a sound that reminds him, a little, of the wind through pine trees, but louder and more rhythmic. A fierce wind, laden with drops of moisture, lashes his hair against his face. There is solid rock beneath his feet, a cloudy grey sky above his head, and an enormous lake in front of him, churning and heaving in waves larger than he's ever seen a storm inspire, crashing their white heads onto the rock. It stretches from horizon to horizon, an awe-inspiring mass of restless grey water, the wind blowing the drifts of spray towards him.

"Where are we?" he asks.

"By the ocean," Tarva replies. The wild wind has already tugged her hair free of its restraints. For once, she is not visibly armed, and her customary full plate has been replaced by the kind of lighter leather armour he prefers. "About a day's travel from West Harbor."

"Ah. Rashemen is far from any coast." He takes a deep breath; it carries no scent. "I see you have forsaken your usual armour."

"The sea-goddess Umberlee isn't called the Bitch Queen because of her kindly nature. She also has a special hatred against Chauntea and those who worship her. While full plate is a very good way to keep your skin intact when faced with swords and arrows, it's an equally good way to get yourself drowned."

"I _thought_ you appeared nervous on that witchboat," Gann says.

"That was a river, Gann," Tarva protests. "I have no problem with rivers. I simply lacked faith in your navigational skills."

"I wasn't steering; the witches' magic took care of all that."

She glances at him. "So all that time at the wheel with the wind ruffling your hair was purely for effect?"

"I wouldn't have put it that way," he says, pretending an offence he does not feel, "but since you have, what did you think?"

"You were courting more knots."

He chuckles, conceding the point. "Now, I believe you had a question for me?"

"Yes," she says, abruptly very serious, and turns away to pace along the smooth, water-worn rock as the waves crash metres away, the wind carrying the spray to them. "Gann, I wanted to ask... well, about Anya."

Oh. He does not much like the sound of this, but he has agreed – and there is more than one thing he wants to ask her in exchange. "What do you wish to know?"

"The truth. Gann, she's a child. What did –" she stops, and rephrases her question, but Gann has heard the 'what did you do to her?' she does not ask. "What happened that night? If you had a problem with the plan I hatched up, why didn't you voice it? Why didn't you help?"

"Ah, Tarva." He can barely hear his own words over the sound of the sea trying to claim the land. What shall he say? "Much as I hate to admit it and spoil your image of me, I am not perfect in all things. I make mistakes, and occasionally I do things of which I am later... ashamed. I did not recognise that Anya was a nascent dreamwalker – if I had, I would never have triggered her powers before she was ready for them. Nor did I intend that she would become so infatuated with me." Tarva makes a small, incredulous sound. He supposes that part does sound a little unlike him. "She was... more susceptible to words of flattery than most. I should have realised a girl so isolated would be..."

His words trail off. Tarva stands a distance away from him, staring out to sea. Her back is very stiff, and it's then he realises –

"Tarva. Please, look at me."

She turns, her chin slightly raised, and her impassive mask as perfect as he's ever seen it. He fiercely wills her to believe the truth he speaks. "Tarva, I gave her the flattery and flirtation of a maiden's dreams, no more. Such innocence, in this dark world, is a rare and precious thing, not to be toyed with or stolen. I would not. Never."

Her silence stretches out between them. She takes in a breath, and slowly expels it, which is more than Gann feels able to do. This is important; her trust was hard-won and would surely be irreparably damaged if she thinks that he took advantage of Anya. Even closer to his heart, she would never believe the words he wishes to say to her.

Which reminds him that he still does not know how to shape them. It's an added degree of tension, one he does not need.

"No," she says, finally, and he breathes again. "No. I'm sorry, Gann, truly. When I saw Anya trapped in her dream, I did doubt. I should have known better than that; I should have trusted you."

"Not all of the dreams I have walked are so innocent," he says softly.

"I know," she answers, stooping to pick up a smooth grey stone and turn it over in her fingers. "You've never hidden that. You are many things, Gann-of-Dreams, but you're honest about all of them. I... appreciate that."

Her sincerity touches him, although it feels like one step forward and two back – again. "Thank you."

"Well," she says, and throws the pebble out to sea; the hungry waves swallow it with barely a splash. "What about the other part of it, Gann? You could have talked rings around that pale imitation of yourself. You refused."

"Yes, I did," he answers. There is a near perfect opening here. All he has to say is: "I could not contest for Anya's favour, for I love _you",_ and it would be said. He's not sure if it's cowardice or a sense of timing that holds those words back, and brings forth ones that are only half the truth at best. "I didn't like the way she spoke to you."

She turns and stares at him blankly. "You're _not_ serious."

"Utterly."

"What in Chauntea's name – oh. The 'old, ugly and unloved' bit? _That_ bothered you?"

"Yes," he says. "I do not care to hear you or the others we travel with insulted or slandered. Particularly not to your faces."

Tarva shakes her head, muttering under her breath for several heartbeats before her voice rises into audibility to address him again. "Gann, I said she was a child. They say that sort of thing all the time. You should have heard some of tantrums Danaan Starling threw... It doesn't mean a thing." She shrugs, smoothing her hair back behind her pointed ears, fighting a losing battle with the sea-wind. "It was true enough from her perspective, anyway."

"No," he says.

She smiles slightly. "Gods, it's like talking to Casavir. Gann, I'm older than her, and my face is a collection of features on the front of my head, not a work of art."

"That's not how I see you," Gann says quietly. Perhaps too quietly, for she doesn't seem to hear.

"- and that's 'old and ugly' enough for a child in a tantrum. As for 'unloved' – well. I think Anya's and my definitions are a little different. I have had many friends –"

"That's friendship," Gann interjects. "Not quite the same thing."

She raises an eyebrow slightly. "- a father who raised me on his own –"

"Duty."

"Are you going to argue definitions as well?"

"Just a little."

"As you wish, then. I'll let you have 'duty' for the sake of the argument," she pauses, and her voice is very level as she adds, "but do not slight my father again." Ah. He should have known that would be a mistake. Nevertheless, she continues. "What are we left with? Anya only seemed to count the handsome man sprawling at her feet spouting hollow romantic words. Certainly there isn't one of those in my life; but then, I wouldn't want one."

Ah. Well, that wasn't exactly what he wanted to hear. It does not surprise him, though. "And why not?"

"How often do I get in a fight, Gann? I'd always be tripping over him."

"A fair point." He weighs his next words with care. "What about a handsome man who fights at your side and saves his words until you can believe them?"

Abruptly, the wind ceases and the waves still. Her next words are very soft. "I knew one of those, once. Almost, at least."

There's a heavy, cold lump at the pit of his stomach. He speaks with certainty, offering one name to the empty air between them. "Casavir."

"Casavir," she confirms, the soft sigh of the grey waves echoing her word, a resuming pulse. It continues as she throws another piece of rock into the water, with more vehemence this time. Gann realises that she will not speak again...

... not of her own will.

"Will you tell me?" he asks softly. "What was he to you, truly?"

"You are asking this in return for Anya." Tarva's words are not quite question, not quite statement. He nods anyway, and she closes her eyes for a moment. "Very well."


	49. Again Casavir

Without any change as dramatic as a sunset, the light dims until the flat grey sky is black, pierced by thousands of distant stars that offer only the haziest of illumination. Only when the darkness cloaks her features does she speak. "Of all the things to ask, Gann. Well. Casavir."

She pads away; there is just enough light to follow her along the smooth rock as the sea's voice fades to the merest whisper. "He was sworn to Tyr as a paladin, to fight injustice of any kind, by any lawful means. When I met him, he had chosen to protect the farmers and traders of Old Owl Well against the orcs that threatened them. He had decimated their numbers and carried the fight nearly to their leader's lair... they called him Katalmach," she adds, almost under her breath.

"Katalmach?" he asks, eager for her to continue, unwilling to push her harder or more directly. He has never heard this word, and he is not familiar with 'orcs' either, but those do not concern him.

" 'He Who Loses Himself in Battle'," Tarva translated absently. "The Rashemi would say 'a berserker'. I've never seen another to match him in close combat when his blood was roused."

"Not even yourself?" Gann asks, both intrigued and aware that she is not really answering his question. "Tarva, you disappoint me."

Even in the gloom, he could see the faint shake of her head. "When we sparred, he could rarely get past my guard to land a blow. But in a heated battle, when he lost his head... oh, that was another matter entirely." She sighs. "He was a good man, one of the best I ever knew – kind-hearted and loyal... but he could be so infuriating sometimes, when he started talking about the proper way to do things, or got maudlin. Asking to be buried with a quartet of long-dead knights so he could discuss honour with them for eternity, for instance..." A slight huff of air, almost a laugh. "Of course, Sand just _had_ to point out that they probably didn't speak Common at all, and then start wrangling with Zhjaeve over whether that would even be relevant, Neeshka wanted to rob the graves, Khelgar was admiring the stonework and Elanee was whinging about having a roof over her head, while Grobnar was trying to rhyme 'hacked to bits' without resorting to Bishop's ... hmm, _suggestions_ , Qara was getting that pyromaniac glint in her eye again, and Shandra..." her voice falters.

"You miss them," Gann says, and then grimaces inwardly. Painfully obvious comments are not his usual – or preferred - style.

"Of course," Tarva says softly, as the dream shifts around them. The sky lightens again, showing him a field of rich brown soil, dotted with young plants, a few houses in front of a towering stone wall. Tarva's beside him, but out in the centre of the field stands her own dream-projection of herself, hazy and immaterial. "But you were asking about Casavir... Let me show you."

So he focuses on the dream-Tarva. The last light of the dying sun lingers on her straight back; a strong wind tugs at her hair, and swirls the hem of her loose grey sleeping gown about her bare ankles. Her eyes are fixed on the horizon, where a livid mass of storm clouds roil, illuminated from within by sporadic bolts of lightning. She is praying, and the Tarva beside him murmurs the same words.

"Great Chauntea, all this land is yours. All that grows in our fields does so at your word. All that we sow and tend and harvest is your gift to us. You know how badly our crops need this rain. Please, hear me. Send it to us, sweet Earthmother..." her voice trails into inaudibility, her eyes close, but her lips are still moving as she implores her goddess for aid.

Gann remains silent, with some difficulty. Travelling with Kaelyn and Tarva hasn't changed his mind about the preening, strutting creatures they call gods... but this is important to her, and that's enough.

The lightning strike, painfully bright, blinds him for a moment, and it's accompanied by a great crash of thunder. Tarva's eyes fly open as the wind, heavy with the scent of rain, strengthens, and she watches as the clouds, heavy with rain, fill the sky. "Oh, Chauntea, thank you!" she breathes as the precious rain begins to fall. She spreads out her arms and tilts her face upward, the driving rain almost instantly soaking her through, plastering her hair flat to her head and her robe against her skin.

Gann simply watches, ignoring the dream-rain that does not touch him and Tarva's quiet presence by his side, paralysed by the fierce exultation that lights her dream-face. She looks so alive, so right, so happy – and he's seen her neutral, or off-guard, or enjoying herself, but never happy - surrounded by the thrumming sound of water on earth, swaying gently in the rain.

"My lady?"

The dream-Tarva whirls around, the sound of Casavir's voice instantly wiping the joy from her face. Gann could almost hate him for that alone. She faces the paladin perfectly composed. "Yes, Casavir?"

He removes his cloak and settles it over her shoulders. "You're soaked."

"Yes," she says, and irritation flickers in her eyes. "And it's wonderful. You didn't need to come out here after me. Edario won't forgive you for getting your armour all rusty."

"Forgive me, my lady, but I did. Your attire is... unseemly." The muted shock on her face is clear to Gann, but the paladin doesn't seem to see it. "You are a lady of rank, a commander of soldiers, and..." his voice roughens slightly, "and a woman. As such, it is hardly appropriate for you to be out in public, dressed only for the bedchamber."

"Casavir." The tone of her voice is a plea, one the man does not heed.

"Please, allow me to escort you inside."

"No," she says, but her defiance is weary and without strength, the refusal of a small child who knows she will give in sooner rather than later. It seems uncharacteristic of the Tarva whom Gann knows. "Casavir, I need to be out here." She searches for the words that will sway him. "This rain is a gift from Chauntea, and I should give thanks."

"Your attire is... inappropriate," says another voice – Bishop, easing out from the shadows, mimicking Casavir's deliberate delivery. Gann sees the momentary slump of Tarva's shoulders before she tries and fails to square them, and the way Casavir bristles. "As I understand it, most Chauntean rituals require the participants to be wearing a great deal _less_. I'd just come to the conclusion you weren't that devout."

"Bishop," Casavir growls. "What are you doing here?"

"Same as you, _paladin_ ," the ranger says, and his amber eyes slide over Tarva. "Enjoying the view."

"Enough," she says, handing Casavir back his sodden cloak, ignoring Bishop's open appraisal. "Enough," she repeats, and she sounds defeated, the rain streaking over a face empty of emotion and all the more miserable for it. She pushes past them, heading back for the keep. The two men start to squabble, faint and insistent, before Tarva banishes them back to her memory.

He turns to look at her, stony-faced in the pouring rain. "So your paladin friend was a strait-laced fool who didn't understand you in the least."

"No," she says, and there's a ghost of something like fondness on her face. "If that's what you saw, I made a mistake in showing you that. The point was, I didn't want to hear what he had to say, but he was absolutely right. Nobody else would have told me that I was making a spectacle of myself and come to bring me in."

"He was wrong," Gann says. She had been _happy,_ and of what importance was the paladin's narrow idea of propriety compared to that?

Tarva stares at him a moment, then shakes her head. "Well. It seems I haven't really answered what you asked yet, have I?" She's hesitant and very quiet as she begins to stutter out a sentence, then stops, takes a deep breath, and tries again. "You witnessed that dream, Gann – you know what he said."

"I do," he concedes, then, more gently, "and what you said. More importantly, what you did not say. He heard you say that you didn't love him... but that wasn't what you said, was it?"

A long silence, and then she sighs. "No. No, it was not."

"And why –" she cuts him off.

"Because I _didn't know_! I didn't know _anything_!" Gann knows a moment's doubt at the sound of her voice; she sounds like a different woman entirely. She paces back and forth, the words spilling forth like blood from a wound. "I didn't know he felt that way, and I didn't see it coming, and I didn't know what to do!"

She comes to an abrupt halt, and quietens. "I didn't know whom to believe. Casavir was a paladin. Paladins do not lie, but they don't break their vows, either, and he had... My father had told me - but he _lied_ to me for twenty years... And there was no _time_! Black Garius was breathing down my neck, the Sword was pulling me out to the Mere constantly, and if Kana didn't need me for something, Nevalle or Nasher did... And then there was that moment with Bishop, and I knew I'd miscalculated with him, I'd missed something - and that was dangerous, he was dangerous, unpredictable, and there wasn't time to find out what he'd do..." She stops, takes a breath, slows her words once more. "We'd fought that day. I was tired and I was frightened – I knew Garius would attack soon, and people would die. And Casavir asked for a moment, and he said, he said - that. I didn't know what to say, but I knew Casavir. Whether he was sincere or not, I owed him some sort of answer. So I tried to explain, and I failed..." She says the next words so calmly that it takes Gann a moment to understand them. "And Bishop was right, although I think I knew it before then. I killed him with those words."

"Tarva, no," Gann protests.

She looks up at him, her face drained of emotion, and asks with the simplicity of a child, "Was that all you wanted to know?"

Not really; although she has shed a lot of light on herself, he still needs to think and sort it out in his own head. The most important question of all has yet to be asked or answered, but after wakening the ghost of the man who had loved her (and whom she might, perhaps, have loved) - "Tarva, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have –"

"No, you shouldn't have. Just as I should have trusted you and not asked about Anya." She shrugs slightly.

She _forgives_ him, and – "The two things are hardly equivalent," Gann says.

"They are to me."

\- and suddenly the words are there. Not straightforward, not plain, but no less heart-felt or honest for all that. "I did have a reason for asking, as it happens. I have a... confession, of sorts, to make."

Her eyebrows rise a fraction as she accepts the shift of subject. "Isn't that rather more Kaelyn's line of work?"

"Not in this case." He would have to tread this measure with great care, but the day that Gann-of-Dreams could not set his words to dancing a twisting path was the day his voice was silenced forever.

Her face softens, very slightly; only one who has watched her as intently and as long as Gann has would even notice it. "Well, then, I'm listening."

"I have been very careless."

"Carelessness, Gann? Really?"

"Verging on criminal negligence. There is a certain... object of mine; while it never left my possession in my life, it was never quite whole. I might even say that it was flawed and cracked in a dozen places." He looks at her; she displays no emotion, although she is listening intently.

And she has absolutely no idea what he's talking about.

He can work with that.

He hopes.

"I cannot be entirely sure under the circumstances, but I believe that it was during our wandering in the Skein that this state of affairs began to change. Or perhaps that was simply when I noticed it." He can hear that his voice, usually so melodious, is low and almost rough; he cannot seem to modulate it correctly. He can feel Tarva's eyes on him, but does not look up to meet them. His courage only stretches so far – which is perhaps why the words that came to him are so oblique. "After our escape, I discovered that this thing of mine been made whole – and no sooner had I realised this than I also realised that I had lost it. That is my carelessness."

"Lost?" Tarva asks. "We did leave the Coven is rather a hurry, but you should have said something, Gann. We can go back – it's clearly important to you, or else you wouldn't brought it up –"

"No need," he says, just as surprised as she is by the nervous chuckle that bubbles from his lips. "As it happens, I know exactly where it is. Where it has always been, of course, or else I could not have survived so long... but mostly, the important part, it is in your keeping."

"Gann," Tarva says, one hand tugging at her hair. "This possession that is lost and found and in more than one place at the same time... you're not making sense. It's more like a riddle than a confession. What precisely are we talking about here?"

Yes. That's it. That is all he should say; she is an intelligent woman and she has all the pieces she needs to decipher his meaning. When she does, it will be up to her to decide what she wants to do about him. He will say nothing; she will have as much time as she needs (or her curse will allow her) to consider...

It would be so sweet to answer her question, to tell her openly that he loves her, but even more than he dares to hope that she could love him in return, he fears to become another of the memories that haunt and pain her.

So leave it to her –

"Very well," he says quietly into the silence, assuming as much of his usual manner as he can. It isn't much. "Let it be a riddle. A challenge – just between the two of us."

She studies him, her head tilted to one side. "No help?"

"Only from me, and only if you admit defeat and request the answer. However, I believe you have all you need to solve it. You discovered my mother's identity with much less to work with."

Tara inclines her blue-black head, the faintest trance of a smile at one corner of her mouth. Seeing even that much warms him; even after the memories and the difficult, painful questions they have shared tonight, he can make her smile – as much as anyone can. "Well, Gann, you're on."

"Good luck," he says. "For both our sakes," and dissolves the dream before she can ask what he means by that.


	50. Kelemvor

"Janiik's farm is the only one out there, Gabi, you'll find it easily," Tarva told the half-drow girl, Skyla Avolov's grand-daughter.

"That road's not safe," Gabi protested. She cast a sideways glance, equally beseeching and coquettish, at the hagspawn leaning in her doorway. "The army's gone, but there are still spirits out there that might be hostile. I don't want to go alone."

A few short months ago, Gann would have jumped at an invitation like that. Ah, how things changed. He ignored Gabi's appeal in favour of watching Tarva. She hadn't said anything about last night, or the puzzle he had posed for her, but he could perceive the subtle change.

Gann-of-Dreams could tell when a woman was thinking about him.

"I cannot go with you," Tarva said. "My other companions are waiting for me. Besides, if I did, you'd be far more likely to be attacked by spirits."

"I can help," Gann interjected. "Give me but a moment." Now, who among the spirits was reasonably powerful, but not frightening, able to manifest to someone with few ties to the spirit world, and, most importantly, was in his debt? After a moment's thought, he realised that no such spirit existed. Well, then, who could he call upon that fit most of those criteria, and _he_ wouldn't mind owing a favour? There was Geiborah, of course – they'd had dealings before - but the owl was likely to bore the girl out of her skull with his long-winded explanations. The stags were generally fairly amiable, but he simply didn't have time to follow and guard a migrating herd.

Or the inclination to incur too deep a debt on behalf of this girl, for that matter.

Only half trancing – he didn't need to go any deeper, not in Rashemen, not for something as simple as this – Gann sent out a request to the spirit world. The response was all but instant, as though they had only been waiting for him to ask. That was both unsettling and surprising, but not as surprising as the moment when he opened his eyes and saw the manifested forms of the spirits that had answered his call.

He had expected... oh, a telthor who was new to its duties and over-eager. Instead, he saw the glowing forms of two huge, ancient ravens, spirits as powerful and revered as Okku himself. They looked rather out-of-place, perched on the Avolov's kitchen table, their wings spread wide and casting a blue, ghostly light over everything. Impossible for a shaman not to recognise them; equally impossible not to wonder exactly why they had come. Their love of mischief was as famous as their wisdom.

"Hukhin, Myunni. You honour us with your presence." Gann offered a small bow, and Tarva a respectful nod. He worried for a moment, but then remembered how she had gorged in Myrkul's Vault. Gabi's eyes were very wide.

Hukhin croaked, a hoarse syllable that was somehow mentally translated into speech. Few were the spirits who had the ability to speak, and even most of them chose their own way to communicate. " _We always ask a price, shaman. Would you sacrifice your eye for wisdom?"_

"If I were seeking wisdom, perhaps," Gann replied. "But that was not why I called."

" _Oh, we know. You would have us take this fledgling under our wings, and bring her to her mother's mother at the nest of bears."_ Myunni swiped his beak against the back of a chair. " _Not our usual purpose, but we will do this. For a price."_

"H-honoured ones," Gabi said, her voice shaking slightly, "if there is a price, it is mine to pay. I know how to honour the spirits – I will pour you a bowl of fresh milk–"

Gann winced. That was an appropriate offering for the young fox-spirits who haunted Mulsantir's houses, but for such as these two, it was a grave insult. If they took offence -

Hukhin snickered. _"Milk? We know the secrets hidden in the dark places of the world; we whisper them in the ears of the One-Eyed. We feed on the flesh of the dead, on their blood and thoughts and memories. What is milk to us?"_

" _We shall teach you better, on the road. If our price is met,"_ Myunni added.

"How may I honour you?" Gann asked.

The telthors fixed jewel-bright eyes on him. _"You have **nothing** to interest or offer us, Gannayev-of-Dreams. We did not come for you." _ Their heads swivelled to face to the one person who had not yet spoken.

Tarva.

" _We knew when you woke, spirit-eater,"_ Hukhin said.

"Spirit-eater?" Gabi nearly shrieked out the word, and backed away. As reactions to meeting a legendary monster went, Gann had to admit it was fairly justified.

" _Do not interrupt, child."_ Hukhin continued. " _We felt you devour faithful Nakata, spirit-eater; we sensed your destruction of countless other spirits who served the land. But you wear a strange face this time – other telthors have crossed your path and survived. The Wood Man is stronger than in many centuries. Okku himself walks with you and defends you against his own kind. We wish to know this: is this new mask truly more kindly, or simply more cunning? Can we trust you? That is our price."_

Gann opened his mouth to protest. This was outside all dealings with the spirits he understood. The telthors could demand any price they chose, but it should be demanded either from himself (who had called them) or from Gabi (who would benefit), not from Tarva, who had nothing to do with it. "This is wr-"

He staggered underneath the vicious lash of spirit energy Hukhin sent at him. _"You have been well taught, shaman, and you are as close to being one of us as any breathing creature has ever been. But **never** presume to judge us again."_

"You leave him alone," Tarva said, her hands tensing on her scythe-handle.

Myunni cocked his head at her. _"Spirit-eater, Hukhin was merely teaching the shaman an important lesson. Your companion will be no worse for it. Come, we have business here."_

She ignored the raven. "Are you all right, Gann? I _felt_ that."

"No permanent damage," he answered, both heartened and touched by her concern, "but I haven't been hit like that since I was a child. I haven't missed it."

" _Spirit-eater,"_ Hukhin croaked. _"Will you accept our price?"_

" _Brother, remember this mask is a stranger to our land. She doesn't understand what we are asking, nor who we are. You have not even set the contract clearly."_

" _Ah,"_ Hukhin roused his feathers. " _Of course. Spirit-eater, these are our terms. We will see this girl safely to her family at the Wells of Lurue. In return, we will sift your thoughts and memories – those of your mask, and those of you, yourself, that we are able to access – and determine for ourselves how far you are to be trusted. Do you assent to this?"_

Tarva glanced at him. After a moment's thought (the ravens were tricksters, but not malign; the offered contract seemed honest; he didn't know exactly how they planned to 'sift' her memories and what that might be like; his head still hurt from Hukhin's reprimand), he shrugged.

"I assent," Tarva said. "But be careful. My control over the curse is not perfect."

The ravens hesitated for an instant. Then, in unison, they launched themselves from the table and over to Tarva, settling one on each plate-clad shoulder. A change passed over Tarva's face; her living, breathing body was empty of _her._

What had they done? What had he let them do?

"Tarva?" he called, softly, as Gabi stared in horrified fascination.

" _She is not here,"_ Hukhin said impatiently. " _Let us work, shaman_!"

" _She will not be harmed,"_ Myunni added. Then the raven's ghostly beaks stabbed into Tarva's skull.

It went on for what seemed a long time. Tarva stood there, still and staring, as Hukhin and Myunni rooted around in her head, croaking and chuckling to themselves. Gabi, looking rather queasy, retreated into another room. Gann waited, feeling rather sick himself, her hands held in his, trying not to see the ravens pecking, and failing.

Then there came a flare of dark Hunger. The ravens flapped clumsily out of the way, cawing their alarm, as Tarva blinked. In another moment, Gann unceremoniously hit the ground – she'd shoved him away – and the half-elf was wrestling the Hunger down. Finally, she looked up, white and shaking. "Well, _that_ was an experience."

"Tarva." Gann got to his feet. "Are you –"

"Are you hale?" Gabi echoed from the doorway.

"Close enough," she answered, leaning back against a wall for support. "Did you ravens find what you needed?"

" _Our terms are met,"_ Hukhin conceded. _"I hope we do not meet again, spirit-eater."_

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Stop apologising, Gann," Tarva said, ignoring the cries of the Mulsantir merchants urging them to come and buy. "The ravens will make sure Gabi reaches Janiik's farm safely and I'm fine. Granted, I wouldn't go through all that again willingly... Is dealing with spirits usually like that?"

"From my vast store of previous experience, never. What did they do to you?"

Tarva shook her head. "I'm not sure. They spoke of sifting my memories... I don't think they put everything back in quite the right order." She pushed open the Veil's doors. "I'm not even sure they found what they wanted – but they did dig deep enough to wake the spirit-eater."

"The living are not welcome in my realm," Lothario proclaimed from the stage, then swore. "Magda, what's my next line?"

"Before I banish you, I wish –"

"- to know how you came here," Lothario completed the line, staring down at the kneeling figure of Wallace-as-the-dreamwalker-Reves.

Okku let out a gusty sigh, seeing them in the doorway. "Little one, I am glad you've returned. All this chattering hurts my ears." He sniffed deeply. "Waugh! You stink of Raven. What have you been doing, little one?"

"Arranging an escort for Gabi Avolov to the Wells of Lurue," Tarva answered, as Wallace launched into a stirring speech about how he had beseeched Sune for aid.

Old Father Bear snorted. "And those two were the best you could find, shaman? Hmph." He rolled his pale eyes. "Jeering birds. What did they demand in return?"

"To poke through my memories, apparently." The half-elf leant against the bear's furry bulk, scratching him behind the ears. "Well, mine and the spirit-eater's."

"Hrrrrrrrm. I shall have to speak to them later." Okku lidded his eyes. "A little more to the left." Gann didn't even try to suppress a smirk as Tarva obliged. "Are we ready to leave, then?"

"We'll wait until they've finished the scene, Okku," Tarva said. "It seems a bit rude to go storming through their stage." He grumbled under his breath.

"Therefore, in Sune's name, Lord Kelemvor, let me bring Avanya back to the land of the living," Wallace concluded his speech.

"Gods?" Gann shook his head. "They put _gods_ in my play?"

Kaelyn, accompanied by Safiya, approached them just in time to hear that comment. "I find myself in agreement with you, Gannayev. This business of men pretending to be gods verges on blasphemy."

"Kelemvor was human once. I'm sure he understands," Tarva answered.

"Ah, but you missed the part where 'Sune' was onstage. I doubt the goddess of beauty will be flattered by being portrayed by _Magda_ ," Safiya laughed.

"Nor do I understand why he cannot simply find a cleric to resurrect her –" Kaelyn added, before Vesper shook his head at them, and they took the cue to be quiet.

"Too simple," Tarva murmured to Kaelyn. "No plot. Grobnar used to go on about resurrection spells and reduced impact of character mortality."

Amber drifted in from the wings, her eyes blank and unfocused. Wallace stifled an exclamation at the sight of her; she displayed no reaction at all. Lothario stared at them impassively. "Even the Fugue Plane feels the gentle power of the Lady Firehair," 'Kelemvor' conceded. Kaelyn made a small sound of disgust. "But even in her name, in the name of love, I cannot grant your request. There are laws that govern us all. Avanya has drunk of the waters of the dead and eaten our food; she cannot return to life." He looked down at the supplicant. "I am sorry."

"No," 'Reves' begged. "No, no, please. Lord Kelemvor, I cannot live without her."

There was a moment of deep silence, and then the god spoke. "Then stay. Swear yourself to me, and I will see to it that you are never parted. You can have eternity together –"

The dreamwalker interrupted him by throwing himself at Kelemvor's feet, spouting servile promises and vows that Gann didn't bother to note. He washed his hands of the production entirely.

Lothario raised Wallace to his feet. "Go in peace, and in love." Wallace sketched a quick bow; Lothario faded into the wings as 'Avanya' rushed forward, her eyes alight with love and hope. The two met in a passionate embrace, which lasted until Wallace's hand crept just a little low and Amber slapped his face.


	51. Djafi

The Shadow Portal spat them out into near-featureless darkness. Had they reached their destination, or had they been wrong to trust a portal constructed by a Red Wizard? The very air felt wrong, still and almost dead, the ground beneath his feet – ah, so there was ground, after all - barely solid, as though it would give way at any moment. A faint glow emanated from Kaelyn's hands, illuminating the half-celestial, the wizard, the bear, the half-elf, and an empty mountainside.

"Where-" Tarva's soft voice was interrupted by Okku's outraged roar.

"Red Wizard! _What have you done_?"

"Okku, what –" Safiya began, somewhat affronted.

"Where are my kin? Where are the spirits?"

And then Gann realised. There was nothing here. No earth elementals swam through the ground, no air elementals danced on the breeze. No telthors prowled the land. In Rashemen, one was always surrounded by the comforting, familiar presence of the spirits; even those whose senses were not as keen as his knew that the spirits watched over them.

Here, on the Thaymont, they were alone.

"Okku!" Tarva laid her hand on Old Father Bear's head in a gesture that looked like a caress, but seemed to act on him more like a restraint. "I feel it, too. Yelling at Safiya won't help – it's not her fault."

"Thank you," Safiya said, staring pointedly at Okku. "Yes, there are no spirits around here. As Gann was pointing out the other night, there have never been many on the Thaymont." She did appear slightly shame-faced as she admitted "But those that did dwell here... well, it is the Academy of Shapers and _Binders._ "

Okku snarled at her, shook off Tarva's hand, and stormed down the path. Gann was rather inclined to agree. To deprive a land of _all_ its guardian spirits... Could these wizards be any more power-hungry or recklessly irresponsible?

"Well," Safiya sighed, "he took that better than I'd expected."

From ahead there came Okku's roar, mingled with odd, yelping laughter, and the wet sound of tearing flesh. Tarva was already running, Kaelyn close behind her; only Gann was close enough, as he started summoning an elemental, to hear Safiya mutter to Kaji, "I see he found the gnolls."

In the darkness, it was difficult to tell how many of them there were; Kaelyn's summoned light was barely enough to tell where Tarva, Okku and Kaelyn herself were, and even then, only because they were grouped near the cleric. Safiya sent a Lesser Missile Storm over his head, allowing him a brief glimpse of dark, furred heads and steel weapons at which to fire Moon Bolts.

It was messy, it was prolonged, and it was eventually over. Kaelyn tended to the wounds the melee fighters had sustained, while Tarva commented, "They're good. Guards, Safiya?"

"The first ring of them, yes. Do you see the walls?" Without waiting for an answer, Safiya turned to address her familiar. "Kaji, get a bit closer and tell me if there's anything unusual.

"What would be unusual?" Kaelyn asked, as the homunculus flapped off.

"You can't just stroll into a Red Wizard Academy," Safiya said, not quite amused. "The gnolls are just to keep out the tourists. The wards... well. Kaji, are they up?"

"Yes, mistress." Safiya's wince was just visible in Kaelyn's light-spell, and the first, faint glimmer of dawn.

Gann wasn't the only one who caught it. "Safiya? What are we up against?" Tarva asked.

"The Academy's protections. It's very powerful and very specific magic. If you use magic, whether divine or arcane, it'll call people to deal with you. If the signature of your magic matches an entry on its proscribed list – and mine _will_ , if Araman holds the Academy – that will be all the senior instructors. A spirit," and she apologised to Okku, "will meet much the same response as a spellcaster."

"So we risk forcing a confrontation with the entire Academy if we press on, or dying of boredom waiting for the wizards to finish studying the concept of 'hospitality' and let us in?" Gann asked. "I enquire only in the spirit of clarification. Did we really come so far with no plan?"

Tarva coughed, deliberately and pointedly. "I did notice a certain omission there, Safiya."

The Red Wizard looked directly at her friend. "I imagine you did. Before you ask, Tarva, you should be able to get through the wards without tripping them. We Red Wizards have a tendency to... underestimate those without any magical gifts. Apart from anything else, they are usually easy to pick off within the Academy and enslaved."

"Charming," Tarva muttered, tugging at a lock of hair.

"You're _not_ going in there by yourself," Safiya added, and Gann echoed her, even as Kaelyn did.

"I wasn't planning on it. I was wondering about disrupting the wards, though."

Safiya inhaled slowly. "That... might be possible. You've got a few problems, though. One, the gnolls. Two, I don't know exactly where you'd find the elementals that power the wards. Three, you'd be alone. If you were injured, we couldn't even help. That leads to four... if you were to be injured, you'd be easy prey, and when we went in to get you, we'd attract all the instructors anyway."

Tarva shook her head as they withdrew a short distance. "Hmmmm... Firstly, how many gnolls, and how are they armed? As long as they don't have crossbows, I should manage." Safiya's expression was quizzical; Tarva explained, "Full plate armour will save me a lot of damage from melee weapons, and it would take a very lucky shot from a bow to hit one of the joints – or the visor of a helmet – to do any harm. A good crossbow, though... a crossbow bolt can punch right through plate. That _would_ hurt." Tarva paused a moment. "But, Safiya, have you forgotten what I am? If elementals power those wards, I can find them. If I am injured, I can channel my spirit to heal my body. And if Araman or his lackeys attempt to stand between us, they _will_ regret it."

"Tarva," Kaelyn's voice was even softer than usual. "I do not believe this wise."

"Yes, little one," Okku agreed. "Surely the wizards will notice that their den is no longer protected?"

"No," Safiya answered, slowly, reluctantly. "Not immediately. They're not powering it themselves. They wouldn't know until they checked, and in all my time here, I don't recall ever checking. It... could work."

"Not until dawn," Gann said firmly. "Not for all the world."

"And why would that be?" Tarva regarded him steadily, the slightest of frowns creasing her brow.

"Because," he explained, "I can help."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"I seem to remember," Gann said, the lightness of his tone almost hiding his deeper concern, "you once called me useless." He watched Tarva, limned by the rosy dawn-light, tense and fiercely elegant as a stalking snow-cat as she approached the Academy's walls; Safiya shifted uncomfortably beside him as he nocked an arrow and waited.

There, on the watchtower –

Gann loosed his arrow before the gnoll could release the bolt from its crossbow; reaching back into his quiver for another before it sped home to the beast's throat. Tarva had reached the gates, and a small flood of gnolls – not more than ten, surely, but certainly no less than seven - poured out and engulfed her, and he didn't dare think about that or he'd run to her side and to the Hells with the consequences..."You suggested that being able to attack from a distance by mundane means would never be necessary." He peppered the dark crowd with arrows. His heart leapt when some of the gnolls broke off attacking Tarva and ran for him – let them get just a little further and –

It was difficult to tell whether they died by his arrows, the explosion of Ilmaterian divine energy, whatever spell Safiya had sent at them, or Okku's claws.

"I apologised," Safiya protested, as Tarva slipped through the gate and out of sight. There was nothing more he could do. He lowered his bow.

"You didn't seem very sincere to me."

"I'm a Red Wizard, not a bard."

"She will be well," Kaelyn murmured, less as though she actually believed it, and more as though she was trying to convince herself.

Okku chuckled, shaking his head and spraying gnoll blood from his muzzle. Apparently the bloodshed had restored his good temper. "You need not fear. The spirit-eater knows what she is doing. She is fiercer than a wolverine and twice as clever."

"True enough," Safiya said, fussing with one of her sleeves. "But neither of those traits will be particularly useful if she runs into a single wizard capable of casting Disintegrate. That would be, oh, _all of them_."

"You worry too much." Okku scratched at his muzzle.

"It's a new development for me, Old Bear," Safiya said, rather wryly. "I never worried about anyone before. Am I getting it right?"

"I have held similar concerns for my siblings," Kaelyn answered, "and said similar things to others. Your emotions are perfectly natural under the circumstances, nor are you alone in them." She smiled slightly. "Is she, Gannayev?"

He had never quite understood what the priestess could and could not see with those black eyes, and it never ceased to be disconcerting when she turned them on him. Nevertheless, he could hold enough of his composure to ignore the bait. If the Dove intended it as bait; he honestly had no idea. "Naturally, I am concerned."

Okku snorted, taking all of them by surprise. "Very naturally, hagspawn. You two-leggers! Always in season! It's a good thing your courtship rituals are so complicated."

There was a moment's silence. Safiya cocked an eyebrow, and Kaelyn studied him carefully. It was not that he minded, not really, but... "Courtship?" he asked, with well-practised nonchalance.

"Please." The bear shook his head again. "I have a nose. The pher-"

"Mistress!" Kaji called from closer to the wall. "The wards are down!"

"Let's go." Gann was quick to follow his own advice.

Although a distraction, that had been a little closer to home than he preferred. Now, to find her...

Okku led. As Tarva had once noted, he had a sense of smell that very few hounds could have matched; more to the point, he was even more sensitive to the spirit-eater's traces than Gann. They hurried past the corpses of those gnolls that had fallen to them, and, at the first gate, those who had attacked Tarva. Up on one of the towers lay one Gann had slain; the other tower on the outer gate, and both of those on the inner one, were empty.

Okku stopped to sniff at a patch of blood-stained dirt that seemed indistinguishable from all the others in the vicinity. "She is wounded," he said, and picked up the pace. The sounds of a fight met their ears after they passed the second gate, and soon after they saw Tarva locked in battle with an enormous gnoll on the very steps of the Academy.

No sooner had he seen that than the gnoll disappeared in a flare of spells, and the armoured figure whirled around. Her voice sounded strangely muffled through the helm. "What in the Nine Hells are you doing here? I haven't found the wards –"

"Tarva, they're down!" Safiya said.

"What?"

The doors creaked open, revealing a man in Red Wizard robes, whose tattoos were nearly obscured by his wrinkles. Gann tensed for a fight, sure they had been discovered –

"Master Djafi!" Safiya's voice was strong and glad. "I thought you'd surely –"

"Safiya, dear, hurry." He ushered the small group into the Academy and into a classroom, apparently blind to the rather disconcerting decor of rotting bodies in red robes. It had been – how long, more than a moon? – and nobody had given any thought to cleaning up the mess?

Perhaps they liked it that way.

I've been keeping an eye on the gate; I knew you'd try to return sooner or later. I recognised Kaji right away," Djafi was saying. "So I disabled the wards for you."

"Master Djafi, please," Safiya was uncharacteristically hesitant. "I was told that... my mother..."

"I'm afraid so."

"Safiya, I am so sorry," Tarva began softly.

The Red Wizard shook her head, her expression fierce. "Araman would never have allowed her to live. Hoping otherwise was a waste of time. I should have known better. I _did_ know better." Her fists clenched. "I'm sure she made Araman _bleed_ for his victory."

Of all of them, it was Okku who spoke first. "When we find him, Safiya, we'll tear his head off." Gann found himself nodding his agreement, while Kaelyn merely narrowed her eyes.

"First we have to find him," Tarva said.

"Word is he's looking to kill the Founder." Djafi shrugged. "Now, my subject is Creation, not Numerology and certainly not History, but by my guess, he's centuries too late. Chasing chimerae will probably keep him out of your way, Safiya, but there are many here who would love to prove their loyalty to the new regime by handing Araman your head on a platter."

"You lock up the platters, Master Djafi, and I'll take care of my head. I take it all her notes are still in her tower?"

"All those that were not burnt in Araman's attack." Djafi shook his head. "Such a waste, her research is priceless. And, Safiya –" the old man looked, suddenly, much older. "Take care."


	52. Nefris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always annoyed me that only three people in the Academy – Masters Inarus, Djafi and Araman himself – seemed to know who Safiya was, or care. I mean, she lives there. Her mother was the headmistress. She taught those students. You'd think at least one of them would have something to say about it. 
> 
> Also, I remember reading somewhere that every Epic Spell is supposedly researched or invented by an individual epic character, which makes Safiya, Kaelyn, Gann and Araman knowing pretty much the exact same ones ridiculous.

"So," Tarva said, as Safiya led them through the corridors to her mother's tower, "I know there are ways to magically blind or deafen an opponent. What about blocking their sense of smell?"

Safiya glanced back at the half-elf. Her face was composed, but there was grim determination in the line of her mouth. "I've never heard of one. I could possibly research something-"

"Please," Okku rumbled.

"- but I don't think we have a tenday to spare."

Tarva stopped in her tracks. "Oh, by all the gods... Safiya, _what is that_?" The usually impassive half-elf swallowed repeatedly; Gann felt the surge of Hunger fighting against her control.

Safiya studied the weapon master. "Spirit-eater?" Tarva nodded, her face very set. "Unless somebody's set a bunch of elementals running through the halls – unlikely – I suppose it must be the Soul Repository." Seeing that not a single one of them understood, the Red Wizard explained further. "I've never felt really comfortable with the practice, but we do store a number of disembodied souls here; they are necessary to some of our work, and I know my mother was working on extremely advanced Soul Theory..."

"That is monstrous," the Dove's wings flared out. "The souls of the dead should pass to their rightful rest – not be imprisoned and tormented."

Safiya shrugged. "Not all of them are dead, Kaelyn. The body can survive without the soul – at least for a time. There's a ward downstairs-"

"Enough, please," Tarva choked out the words. "Away."

"Oh, look." From the entrance to a nearby classroom, a student drawled out the words, slowly and with what he probably imagined was menace. "Slaves."

It fell rather flat.

"Jadhu," Safiya greeted him. "I suppose the rest of your talentless clique is around here somewhere?" A few more bald heads appeared in the doorway. "I see they are. I haven't missed all those hours trying to drum the basics of crafting into your misshapen little skull. Still, once an instructor, always an instructor." She leaned slightly towards him. "When cast by a skilled wizard, _this_ is what Disintegrate feels like."

The next few minutes proceeded much as could be expected. Clearly Safiya had not been exaggerating in her estimate of her students' talents. A couple of them got spells off; Tarva fenced with a sword wielded by an invisible hand while Safiya wreaked all kinds of destruction, Okku swatted them down with a massive paw, and Gann's elemental filled the room with the scent of burning flesh.

Kaelyn... did nothing. "Was that really necessary, Safiya?" she asked, when it was over.

"Yes," Safiya said, leaving the bodies where they lay. "Either they supported Araman, or they pretended to while he killed my mother. Either way they are complicit in her death. Besides," she frowned at a plain brown door, drawing a bunch of keys from her sleeve, "they'd have attacked in another moment. Slaves are fair game on Academy grounds."

"I fail to understand how anyone of such noble mien as myself could _ever_ be taken for a slave." Gann tossed his hair out of his eyes.

Safiya nodded at the gesture, one eyebrow raised.

"It's the hair?" Tarva asked.

"Free-born Thayans shave their heads. Slaves don't have the leisure." The door swung open, revealing a narrow, winding flight of stairs that seemed to reach upwards a very long way. "They won't be the last – we should be prepared."

"No!" Okku roared. Four humanoid heads swivelled to face the outraged bear.

"It's only self-defence, old bear," Safiya protested.

"I am eager to shed the blood of your kind, Red Wizard. What I will not do is _climb those stairs!"_

They went down instead. The stairs to the Instructors' quarters were shorter.

"I'm surprised this is still here," Safiya said, pausing outside one room, empty of people, but cluttered with metal parts and half-shaped lumps of clay. However, it was the pair of mirrors that caught Gann's attention – much to his disappointment, they were facing away from him.

"What is 'this'?"

"My room, Kaelyn. And – " Safiya concentrated for a moment, "my wards seem intact. Not raised, but intact." She held up a hand to forestall the cleric. "Don't go in. It may be trapped. I'll run some tests."

They sat out in the corridor while Safiya fired spell after spell into the room. "I hope," Tarva said, leaning back against Okku, "that all her paranoia is unjustified."

"These _are_ Red Wizards, little one," Okku reminded her.

"Mmm. Possibly more."

"Your dreams?" Gann asked, and Tarva nodded, as Safiya threw a fireball into her room. This apparently did not wreck the place.

Kaelyn, who'd been even quieter than usual, chose this moment to speak up. "Tarva, you once asked that I help you question your motives. There is something I have been pondering for some time."

Tarva sighed. "If you think now's a good time, go ahead."

"The surroundings are not suited for contemplation, it is true. However, events do not wait for us to feel ready, and I fear that soon we will all be put to the test."

"Ask, then," answered Tarva, her voice calm and her face expressionless.

"What do you truly want?"

That seemed rather personal; naturally, Gann was curious to hear her answer. She gave it without hesitation. "I would have thought that was obvious. I want my freedom."

Kaelyn hesitated a moment – apparently the priestess was not entirely devoid of tact, after all – and asked "At what cost? You have proven yourself a trustworthy, careful host; another after you might not prove so honourable. Would you free yourself of this Hunger, only to inflict it upon Rashemen once more?" Tarva was silent, staring past Kaelyn at a patch of floor. The cleric continued. "Would you see all your progress undone?"

 _That_ provoked a reaction. "What progress? We've gallivanted around the countryside, and all we know is that the Wood Man doesn't believe there's a cure and Lienna and Nefris did. We know their plan involved inflicting this on me and speaking with Myrkul; we don't know whether they succeeded or not, or what the rest of their plan was, let alone whether it would work!"

Her curse... it was still a death sentence. Sometimes he managed to forget.

Kaelyn opened her mouth, then shut it again. Gann had no words – everything she said was true. Safiya was still experimenting on her room. Of all of them, it was Okku who found words. "You healed the Wood Man, little one. You spared my life. You are stronger than you think."

"Aren't we all?" Safiya asked flippantly, appearing out of nowhere. Had she heard nothing of the conversation apart from Okku's final comment? "I am eighty-nine percent certain that my room isn't trapped, and if I can get a living, breathing volunteer to enter it – so, not Okku - I think I can improve on those numbers."

"I shall," Kaelyn offered as she got to her feet.

"Better cast some protections," Safiya suggested. "Just in case."

"That doesn't sound like eight-nine percent safety to me," Tarva said, her voice still a little shaky.

"I rarely gamble," Safiya said, "particularly with lives. At least, not at those odds."

Kaelyn completed her castings, the various spells filling the air about her with patterned light. "After you," Safiya waved her on.

Tarva stood and followed the wizard and the cleric to the threshold of the room. Her words were soft, but perfectly audible. "Kaelyn... you're asking me if I'd take my freedom at the price of passing this on someone else, who might not take the care I have. I... I don't know. Pray, as I do, that I never face that choice."

"I seem to have missed half the conversation," Safiya said as Kaelyn stepped in. Judging by the way she failed to explode or be ignited, Gann supposed the room was clear.

"More than half," Tarva said. "I'll fill you in later, if you want. Are we safe?"

"I _think_ so. One final test." Kaji in tow, Safiya entered her room herself. "Good. Unless it's really sneaky – triggered by us going to sleep or something, and I don't think Araman had time to set that up – we should be able to use this as a centre of operations. I'll put my wards up, and we should be safe from anything short of a full-scale attack."

"I caught a few 'I thinks' and 'shoulds'," Gann noted, as he and Okku sauntered in – well, he sauntered. Okku did not possess the requisite grace, and merely walked in. "What percentages are we talking about this time?"

"Between seventy and ninety-five," Safiya shrugged. "I'd still leave someone on watch; it's not that much better than camping out in the wilderness. But it'll give you somewhere to sit, Okku, while we two-legged people go look at my mother's tower."

Even for those with only two feet to worry about, the stairs were not amusing. While they were in much better repair than those that had led from the Skein to the Slumbering Coven – and not covered in slippery mildew – they felt much, much longer.

"Safiya, are there any of those gnolls inside the Academy?" Tarva asked, when they'd stopped on a landing. Gann couldn't even recall what excuse they'd come up with, but it appeared that every single one of them could do with a break.

"Not allowed," Safiya said. "Except if you really need one to experiment on. It's not recommended. They can explode."

"Explode?" Gann asked. The mental image wasn't pleasant.

Safiya just shrugged. "To be fair, most things do under sufficient pressure."

"Good," Tarva said, and it took Gann a moment to realise she wasn't talking about the exploding gnolls. "I know the wizards aren't likely to pick up a blade or a bow – anything else here that would?" A little puzzled, Safiya shook her head. "Good again."

"Because?" Safiya prompted her.

"Oh. Full plate's heavy, you know, and it doesn't protect me against magic. If it's not going to help, I see no reason to continue wearing it." One corner of her mouth quirked upward. "And it is ridiculously heavy to drag up all these stairs."

"Speaking of which..." Safiya sighed.

At the top of the staircase waited a large room. It would have been sunny and spacious once; now, though, it bore the scars of Araman's coup in every charred floorboard and overturned piece of furniture. The doors – all save one – of the side rooms were either missing or wrenches off their hinges, and over near the fireplace, there was a dark stain...

Safiya rushed to one of the side rooms, into what had probably once been a small, cheerful room infested with books, and now was a small room thick with the stench of charred paper and blood. "Mother's private study," Safiya said. "Her refuge. Nobody's allowed in here, not even me." The Red Wizard swallowed hard, and turned away from the others. She was silent for a long moment, before she added, "If she wrote down _anything_ that might help us, it would be in here somewhere. I know Araman did a lot of damage, but – " she started rummaging through a half-burnt pile. Gann followed suit, not really certain he'd recognise it even if he did find something useful.

Unless it was a nice neat list, entitled "How to End the Spirit-Eater Curse", first step "Kidnap a hero from across the world", he supposed.

"Oh, my," Safiya was muttering. "Would that even work? You'd have to –"

"Safiya," Tarva called from the outer room. Gann gladly left his unproductive pile of papers; the Red Wizard carried hers out with her.

Kaelyn was kneeling in front of the fireplace, sifting through the ashes. Tarva was flipping through a thick book, rather the worse for wear. "I can't make head or tail of this."

Safiya almost snatched it from her hands. "Mother's lab journal! I can't think how Araman missed it. Before you ask, I can't read most of her shorthand, but some of this makes sense. Hmm, hmmm..." she turned over the pages. "This bit's about Soul Division. She ran some experiments, liked some of her results. It's not my subject – too theoretical – but it looks to me as though she was attempting to split souls into stable and self-sustaining personalities. And that looks like an attack on the memory bleedover problem..." Gann wasn't certain whether she was actually talking to anyone, or simply thinking aloud. "Synthesis – fusion – that wasn't going well. Looks like a schematic. It's... ah, it's that room downstairs."

Tarva looked up and shrugged ruefully at him.

He smiled back.

Safiya frowned over her mother's book, and rubbed her forehead. "Just look at this equation... what _was_ she trying to do? Well, balance it, obviously, and that was failing, but why? I don't recognise any of that. Oh –" She held up a small, flat key.

"Seal the door," Kaelyn said, from the fireplace.

"What?"

"This scrap of paper," the priestess explained. "The rest are but ashes."

"Well, we have a sealed door – the only one in this room – and we have a key," Gann said. "Perhaps we should attempt to put two and two together."

"Sound," Safiya admitted, and crossed to the door in question, Tarva and Gann trailing her. Kaelyn rose to her feet and joined them. "Now, this is new."

There was no keyhole, no handle. Instead, there were four hemispherical depressions in the wood, evenly spaced around the verse in the centre.

 _Four wayward souls, four incomplete_  
Unique in flaw with fates foregone  
Four hidden now, each place indiscreet  
Assemble here, advance the pawn  
Imitated and damned, imagined and splintered  
Four reunited souls, their door thus reentered.

"Lovely," Gann said. "More riddles."

"Not really," Safiya said. "We're looking for four souls – particular, unique souls – that have been hidden throughout the Academy. They'll unlock the door. 'Imitated and damned, imagined and splintered': that's probably what we look for."

"Grobnar would've pitched a fit over that scansion," Tarva murmured.

"It may surprise you to learn that poetry is not part of the Red Wizard syllabus. Just be grateful that it rhymes at all."


	53. Again The Fearsome One

The room felt all but empty to Gann. There were his friends, yes, but nothing else.

Not even the man Safiya and Tarva was talking to.

The man's voice was barely more than a breath. Gann would have said he was on the very brink of death, if he did not already feel like an empty husk. It was deeply unsettling; the hagspawn was used to speaking with the dead and the living, with the spirits of rock and water alike, but never before with something that all his shamanic training and senses screamed could not be, and was not.

Okku seemed similarly uncomfortable.

"You would need to locate my soul and bring it back to me. For my own safety Nefris did not disclose its location to me, but she was fond of hiding things in plain sight," the empty man murmured.

"Thank you, Bebtu." Safiya straightened up from the narrow bed. "Well, we know where to find his soul."

"We do?"

"I know how my mother thinks, Gann; I'd have done the same thing in her position. It's in the Soul Repository. As long as Araman hasn't revoked my instructor status with the librarian, we shouldn't have a problem."

" 'Shouldn't?' That's reassuring," Tarva muttered, padding around a corner of the room. It was amazing just how much quieter she was when not encased in full plate armour.

"We should probably hurry," Safiya added. "I don't know how long a person can survive with an artificial construct in place of their own soul-" Kaelyn jerked her head around to stare at Safiya, as though something she'd said had hit a nerve – "but I'd rather not find out the hard way."

"Oh, _gods._ "

"Tarva, what perturbs you?" Kaelyn was only a little behind Gann.

The half-elf knelt beside a cot, her fingers curled around the wrist of a red-bearded man, his forehead decorated with glowing tattoos.

Ammon Jerro.

"There's a pulse," Tarva said, only the faintest wavering in her voice, her face under control. "He's breathing. No wounds, at least, none that I can see. Something's wrong."

"Tarva," Safiya's manner was unusually gentle. "His soul's been removed. This is the ward for the soulless. Who is this?"

Gann had actually forgotten that the others did not have the benefit of peeking into Tarva's dreams. "I believe this is Ammon Jerro."

"That's right," Tarva said, standing up. "Safiya... Safiya, surely there's some way to help him?"

The wizard looked at her a moment, then at the empty body. "Not unless y- _we_ can find and reintroduce his soul, Tarva. It... might be around here somewhere."

And so they traipsed up the stairs and through the Academy. Some of the classrooms held students that spilled out to attack them as they passed; other teachers went calmly on with their lessons; another contained a clay golem that Safiya addressed as 'Master Poruset'. Across the hallway, Safiya greeted the Red Wizard furiously scrawling figures and sigils on a blackboard. He barely looked up.

"Mistress Safiya. A shame about your mother. I'd hoped to study more closely with her." He frowned at the blackboard. "No, no, missed a step somewhere," and scrubbed at the chalk with a sleeve that had already been used for that purpose far too often.

"What are you working on, Selkhit?" Safiya frowned at the blackboard herself, and for a moment looked disturbingly like the student. "Well, no wonder you're making slow progress."

"Nefris claimed it was possible."

"Mother always claimed it didn't matter if her logical foundations were a little shaky. A critical mind-"

"-puts us above the laws of men and gods," Selkhit completed the phrase.

Kaelyn frowned. "The laws of men are mutable. The laws of the gods... they may be cruel, but they are not so easily overcome."

"She used to say that laws are formed by the arrogant and presumptuous, and our work here is a message to them that such arrogance will always be questioned by those with minds and wills of their own," Safiya told the priestess. "Isn't that the point of your Crusade?"

Kaelyn looked rather disturbed by the comparison.

"Safiya, what are we looking at here?" Tarva interrupted.

"Oh... It's difficult to explain without any of the mathematics, or a basic grounding in Soul Theory."

"Try," Tarva said dryly.

Safiya thought for a moment. "Well, it's all mixed up with entropy and chance – but essentially, Selkhit's trying to do something impossible, and channel the energy that would theoretically produce to do something equally impossible."

Selkhit sniffed. "Well, if you want to simplify to a criminal degree..."

Gann rubbed at his forehead.

Tarva shook her head. "And now we know why the Red Wizards have never successfully invaded Rashemen. I know you're not familiar with the concept of "ethics", or "hospitality", for that matter, but is "practical application" so difficult?"

"If Selkhit succeeded, he'd reunite the shattered parts of a soul; quite possibly the 'splintered soul' Mother's verse mentioned. Is that sufficiently practical for you?"

Tarva sighed. "Well, I'll take a look at it, see what – if anything - I can do. Come back and give me a hand when you've got Bebtu's soul."

Safiya frowned. "You're staying here? That's not really safe."

"I don't dare go near that library," Tarva said simply. "Spirits are bad enough, but disembodied souls are a step worse."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Gann was never able to work out, later, how that exchange had led to her operating a lever, while he and Okku chased mephits around the room. Old Father Bear was better at it; filthy, near-mindless creatures the mephits might be, but they understood a threat when it flashed ivory fangs at them, and apparently the bear-god was not corporeal enough to be bothered by either fire or ice. Gann, on the other hand, was very aware that his hair was flammable.

"Get me a fire mephit!"

"Trying, little one," Okku snarled at an ice mephit who was attempting to dart past him to the front of the room. Gann hadn't had much luck waving his arms at them – whether that was due to the inherent ineffectiveness of the tactic, or his own knowledge of how silly it made him look – and he was not about to risk his wooden bow against fire mephits.

Ah. Of course. Really, it was very simple. He smirked at Okku, at the weapon master who was watching the mephits, her hand poised on the lever. "You needn't try so hard, my garish friend." He shaped the magic, let it blossom out across the room, riming the wooden floor with frost. Frost that the ice mephits flocked to, with squeals of glee – those on the other side of the room pressing against the bars – while the fire mephits fled as far away as the constraints of the room permitted.

The lever mechanism flared painfully bright as the final ice mephit joined its fellows, streamers of light running from the equipment in the room and into Selkhit's room. Tarva pushed a stray strand of hair off her face and shot a small smile at him. "Glad to see you're finally using your head for something other than ornamenting your neck, Gann."

"You should do that more often."

"Funny, I was just about to say much the same thing. What should I do more often, Gann? Flip levers?"

"Smile." He saw it her eyes, just for a moment – not realisation, not yet, but the beginnings of a shift from the soft puzzlement that had haunted her face since the Wall towards knowledge. Ah.

Okku pushed past her, rumbling under his breath. Some of it was laughter, Gann was certain, but he was almost sure he caught the word 'courtship' in there, too. Well, he would shamelessly admit to a certain lack of subtlety in his approach.

Selkhit exclaimed, "How in the name of Szass Tam did you do that? That was incredible!"

"Gann cheated," Tarva said.

"No such thing," Safiya proclaimed, sweeping into the room. "We're only interested in results here; means are irrelevant."

"A strong entrance," Gann commented. "I could hardly better it myself. Perhaps more flourish, more swirl on the hem – or linger a moment in the doorway."

He was hardly surprised when Safiya ignored him, taking the small globe from its pedestal and studying it. Selkhit peered over her shoulder. "Shame about that. It's not entirely fused – you can still see the individual fragments. Still, I'd call that a success."

Safiya shrugged. "Let's hope it fits Mother's criteria."

"Shall we go find out?"

It slotted neatly into place on the door, as did the fragile, strange constructed soul they'd recovered from Bebtu. Safiya was looking smug, of course; Kaelyn faintly revolted; Tarva was, of course, rather more difficult to read, but he thought her mind was dwelling on her former ally, and how, so far, they had found nothing to indicate his soul was within their reach at all.

"That's enough for one day, I think," Tarva said, as they rejoined Okku in Safiya's room, and the Red Wizard raised her wards about them. "We could all do with a rest."

It turned... companionable, then. Gann told wild – and only slightly embroidered – tales of a dashing young hagspawn and his dealings with the telthors. Okku grumbled and pointed out several so-called inaccuracies in the shaman's depiction of his kin, spoiling several of the punch lines, while Safiya inserted acerbic comments wherever she thought they were necessary. Kaelyn and Tarva, quiet in their separate ways, just listened.

"... and _that_ is why you will _never_ see a Witch without her mask."

Tarva leant forward, her face utterly impassive, save for a spark of mischief kindling deep in her dark eyes. "You think that's a difficult situation, Gann-of-Dreams? We were in the Duskwood, where the trees nullify all magic..." And if his stories had been outrageous, hers was insane. Mistaken by a tainted dryad for a man who'd disguised himself as the half-elf. Pacifist, magic-using goblins. A giant spider that had communicated by scratching Elvish runes. Obsessive gnomes with an insect collection, who'd actually been werewolves, and tried to seduce Tarva's clueless bard companion...

It was at that point that Safiya threw a small piece of golem at the weapon master's head and begged her to stop. "Gann was bad enough, but this is preposterous."

"Oh, I know," Tarva said, and she was almost smiling. "And every word of it is true."


	54. Thaelka and Oronock

"...I am not disparaging your beliefs, Kaelyn, nor belittling your goal. The Wall of the Faithless is an atrocity, and I would rejoice to hear it had been destroyed."

Gann debated pulling the blankets over his head and pretending he didn't hear. Religious quarrels were no way to start a morning.

"All I am saying," Tarva was addressing the Dove, "is that there must have been some reason it was constructed in the first place."

Wait – Tarva was actually challenging the priestess on her pet topic? Now, that was something new. He'd thought the half-celestial and the half-elf stood together on the Crusade, especially after Tarva's close encounter with the Wall. It was enough to make him open his eyes and sit up on his bedroll. Tarva nodded a greeting; Kaelyn was too intent, staring down at the weapon master, her expression fixed and unreadable. Okku grunted, but that seemed more addressed to Kaji, who was picking wax out of his ears and eating it.

"It might even be _necessary,_ in ways neither of us is wise enough to understand – and you need to recognise that."

Kaelyn was still for a long moment, her wings slightly flared, then gave a stiff little nod. It was not agreement, but rather a curt acknowledgement that Tarva had spoken. Without a word, she turned and left the relative safety of Safiya's room.

Tarva sighed. "Well, I suppose I couldn't have expected that to go any better."

"What was all that about?" Gann asked, glancing over to the corner where Safiya sat, engrossed over the papers she'd taken from her mother's study. "I thought you were as eager as she to tear down the Wall."

A corner of her mouth curved wryly. "Not exactly. Kaelyn and I don't look at the world in quite the same way."

"Well, you can perceive colour, for a start; you also possess a sense of humour and a measure of tact..."

"Trying to make me blush with all these compliments, Gann? I could explain properly, but I'd need to talk about the gods you so greatly despise."

He shrugged, reaching for his armour. "Kaelyn wearies my ears with all her talk of the Crusade; another viewpoint would provide some counterpoint, and I suppose there are worse things you could discuss. On the other hand, I am _certain_ there are more entertaining subjects."

Her eyebrows rose a fraction. "You surprise me. As you wish, then, but tell me if I start to lecture or bore you, and I'll stop. Well. Kaelyn follows Ilmater; like her god, she seeks to end suffering and pain. As a worshipper of Chauntea, I would never support such a quest entirely."

"But I thought –" What had he thought? That her goddess was good, or kind? That Tarva might be blind enough to worship a god, but would surely serve one who was worthy of her regard, if any god could be said to be such a thing? Anything less did not seem like her.

She was looking at him, gauging his reaction. "Hmmm... how can I explain this to you? Suffering, pain, death, all the horrible realities of our lives – they are _necessary_. Not good, often, not right or fair, but they are needed. The priests say that only in its death will a grain of wheat give life."

"Typical priestly doubletalk," Gann said, pulling on a boot.

She took no offence. "Then I really am explaining things badly. Look, Gann – peace, beauty, life – all the good things are won only through struggle and suffering. To end great evil, or earn great good, the means are the same. You can't harvest a crop if you haven't sowed and weeded and tended first. Nothing comes without a cost... Here," she said, crossing the room to his side, and passing him the other end of one of his armour straps. "It was twisted... and that's probably as good a cue as any. I'm waxing philosophical at you."

"I don't mind." Particularly not when she stood so close.

"Religion _and_ philosophy? You're scaring me. Are you sure you weren't replaced by a doppelganger overnight?"

"Such a thing would never happen. I doubt there is a mage capable of duplicating me well enough to fool the most casual of observers. I _know_ that you know me better than that."

"I'm starting to wonder," Tarva said, stepping back as he gave his armour a final tug into place. "Well, my point was just this: we don't know enough about the Wall of the Faithless. It punishes unbelievers – cruelly, yes, beyond anything they could possibly deserve – but that's not a reason. We don't know _why_ , and that's dangerous."

"Perhaps there isn't a reason," Gann suggested. "Perhaps it is, like your curse, a torment imposed on the innocent by arrogant and uncaring gods, and we shall know no peace until it is ended."

The half-elf gazed up at him for a long moment. Gann wondered what she was thinking – what she saw when she looked at him. "That might be so, too – although we still know so little about the spirit-eater. Not all the gods are good." Then she shook her head. "There's the difference, you see. You listened, and you argued. Kaelyn simply refused to hear. Her... single-mindedness concerns me." She sighed. "Or maybe I'm just as self-righteous as she, as unwilling to hear that I'm doing the wrong thing and making the bad choices–"

"Got it!" Safiya shrieked triumphantly. He hadn't thought the Red Wizard capable of that kind of volume, or shrillness. "Gann, you need to look at this. Kaelyn, you too."

"Kaelyn's not here," Tarva pointed out. "And can't I see?"

"Oh," Safiya looked up. "You're right. She isn't. Well, Gann, then, and I'll show Kaelyn later. Mother's notes. Pure genius. Encrypted, but I managed to remember the key. Even you should be able to cast these, with a bit of practice. Look, this summons a fully bound balor, or more than one. This one weaves all the destructive energies into one spell – it'd be hell for whatever you hit with it." She pushed a sheet of parchment at him. He couldn't read a word. "I can't believe even my mother could create something like this. Isn't it a thing of beauty? Siphon the life force of every enemy in the vicinity to heal yourself, and then shape any leftover energy into a Greater Shadow! And this -"

Tarva was shaking her head again. "We're talking magic?"

Safiya stopped babbling, with an effort. "Mother's been experimenting. Nothing new there, of course, but these are entirely new spells. They'll answer to divine or arcane talent, very high level, very elegant. I've almost got the hang of them, no reason why Kaelyn and Gann can't learn them too."

A brief array of emotions passed over Tarva's face, like clouds racing over the sky. They moved too swift to identify, and left no trace behind. "I thought... I thought you'd found something of your mother's plans, Safiya. About the spirit-eater."

"I – oh." For an instant, Safiya almost looked guilty. "I've looked, but either Mother didn't trust anything to paper, or those papers have been destroyed. Tarva –" she rose to her feet and took her friend by the shoulders. "We'll find a way. Somehow."

Tarva nodded slowly. "I'm sorry. I'm being selfish. Attacking Kaelyn's Crusade, forgetting you've lost your mother... forgive me."

"There's nothing to f-"

But Tarva had ducked away, calling Okku to help her track down Kaelyn, and was already gone.

Safiya knelt to gather up her notes, cursing softly. "How could I be so thoughtless? Rattling on about those silly spells when she –" the wizard glanced up at him. "How do you do it, Gann? How do you keep saying the right thing? How do you manage to forget that she's... that she's _dying_?"

He tried to say something witty, something he could hide behind, but the only thing that came from his lips was the brutally honest, "I can't."

Safiya froze. "Oh, _hells._ I should just get Kaelyn to Silence me before I open my mouth ever again. Gann, I'm so sorry." She left the last of the papers scattered on the floor, pushing a golem head aside to sit against the wall. "I didn't know. I mean, I knew you were interested in her, that's been obvious since the Ashenwood, but I didn't realise that you -"

Admitting it, even to Safiya, was, somehow, a relief. "Neither does she, yet."

"Can I ask... can I ask why not? If you don't want to talk, I'll understand," she added quickly.

The hagspawn shrugged, his head held low, his hair shielding him from Safiya's gaze. "There are... complications. She isn't ready to hear it." He laughed, a short, bitter sound that felt uncomfortable in his throat. "I gave her a riddle."

Safiya's hand flew to her mouth. "Gann, I –"

He shook his head. "Enough. Let's go." He rubbed his face with both hands, as if he could physically force it to assume a more normal expression. Judging from Safiya's face, he hadn't really succeeded.

They found all three – Okku bored, Kaelyn angry and wary, Tarva tensed and polite – conversing with a pair of pit fiends. Safiya greeted them. "Thael-ka, Oronock."

"Mistress Safiya. I take it these assorted individuals are your friends?" That seemed to be Thael-ka, but Gann wasn't really sure.

"Since when has a Red Wizard had friends, my developmentally stunted colleague?" retorted the other. "Lab rats, the occasional colleague or associate, perhaps."

"Since she was looking for them, and worried about them. Can't you smell it, or are your nasal passages as atrophied as your brain cells?"

"As I was saying..." Tarva interrupted. "You have one of the four unique souls I am seeking."

"Yes, we can offer you something of that description, mortal - a soul that has been marked for damnation."

"As usual, Oronock, you fail to explain. It is what we do to claim ownership of a soul while its host still lives. This specimen is in a rare transitional stage - its host is dead, but it has not reached Avernus to begin its sentence."

"That would fit," Safiya murmured.

"It would," Tarva agreed. "The question is: what would two devils demand in response? I take it you wouldn't give me what I want out of the goodness of your hearts."

"Considering we haven't any, no. The soul you want is rare. We demand the same in return."

"You cannot be considering dealing with demons," Kaelyn protested.

"Ah, and the smug voice of Celestia is heard again." Thael-ka (unless it was Oronock) was almost laughing.

"Very self-righteous, especially for a fallen angel."

Kaelyn's wings flared and her grip on her mace tightened. Tarva stepped to her side and murmured something that had the priestess calming down again. How did she always do that? "Stop baiting my friend," Tarva ordered the devils, "and tell me what you want. Then we can haggle."

"Haggle?"

"I'm not fool enough to take the first bargain a pit fiend has to offer."

"Really?" Tarva had never been tall, but she looked tiny now, as Oronock loomed over her, all bared teeth and huge, hungry eyes. "And what if I told you we were in possession of more than one damned soul?"

"That a colleague of ours described you very clearly?"

"That we know all about a certain warlock with glowing tattoos in the soulless ward?"

"That the one who removed his soul entrusted it to us for safekeeping?"

"That we've no objection to parting with it?"

"For the right price."

"I – ah," Tarva faltered over the words. "I would –"

Gann stepped in. Safiya appeared to know the pair, but she wasn't saying a thing, Okku wasn't interested, and Kaelyn, it seemed, was too busy loathing the very sight of the devils to do anything useful. While he'd never bargained with devils before – and wished he'd paid more attention to Tarva wrangling with the baatezu in the Coven's dream – he had negotiated with spirits more times than he could easily remember. "I believe that my illustrious leader is attempting to suggest that you state your asking price for the soul of Ammon Jerro, and for the damned soul. We will then withdraw to consider."

The pit fiends stared down at him; he refused to blink. He settled for admiring his own reflection, until he realised that he could see Tarva behind him, and admired hers instead.

"Oronock and I have what you might think of as a joint-ownership arrangement. Unfortunately for you, that means that you will have to pay both of our prices. So, in exchange for the marked soul, I want the soul of a person who lived in the filthiest, most deplorable and wretched conditions, yet forsook all thoughts of himself for love of another. Agreed, Oronok?"

The other devil rolled his eyes. "You've missed the mark completely, Thael-ka, and once again it falls to me to save our reputations. I demand the soul of one brought up in prosperity, who sunk to the depths of depravity. The sickest, most self-centred and delusional individual possible."

"You want us to condemn _two_ souls to you, in exchange for one soul which is _already_ damned?" Tarva asked. Gann could hear the minute tremor in her voice. She did not like this at all.

"No, no! Of course not. That would hardly be fair," Oronock purred.

"We want _one_ soul. One soul with _all_ those qualities."

"One soul that's rich, poor, selfless and self-centred?" Safiya suddenly decided to interject. "I think that could be arranged."

"Safiya!" Kaelyn hissed her outrage.

The baatezu bared their teeth in twin, unsettling grins. "Good luck, then."

"Wait. Ammon," Tarva said.

"I'll keep this simple, out of professional courtesy for my slow-witted partner. I want payment in gold. Fifty thousand gold pieces, that's all."

"Pfft. You were hatched a fool, Oronock, and you grew a fool. The value of gold changes with the winds, but souls are eternal. You –" the devil pointed a talon at Gann "- will bring me the souls of three students. Young, impressionable souls. The kind that will easily break."

"Consider _that."_

"But don't take too long. We have other places to go, other souls to damn, other creatures to torture. You know how it is."


	55. Inarus

"It's a simple matter," Safiya said, frowning over a spirit essence and a golem arm she'd picked up from the floor of her room. "I saw two souls in the Repository that would serve, and I bet Master Poruset survived the coup. He's too valuable to be destroyed – not to mention single-minded. He only cares for -"

Tarva was sitting on the floor, her knees drawn up to her chest. "Safiya, you're not listening. No. There has to be another way. There _has_ to be." And she murmured something else under her breath, as she'd been doing since they left the devils. Gann still hadn't caught all the words. "Went... six... came... one..." Her voice rose into audibility again. "We are not mutilating two souls and giving the fiends three more besides. Ammon..." she swallowed, "Ammon Jerro isn't worth that-"

Gann wasn't the only one surprised at that. They had all had a taste of how loyal Tarva was to her friends, how much she would do for them – surely she did not wish to leave Ammon's soul with the fiends?

"- and he would be the first to say it. He knew what he was."

"And what was that?" Gann asked, knowing that the others wouldn't.

"A murderer, and damned. He sold his soul for the power to stop the King of Shadows, and he killed anyone who got in the way of that goal. Dalren, Melia, Shandra... me, too, several times, if I hadn't been lucky and he hadn't had more pressing concerns at the time."

"You kept strange company," Safiya commented.

"You still do," Gann said.

"I suppose so," Tarva conceded, but she was not, apparently, to be distracted. "He did evil things, knowing they were evil, with his eyes open. He regretted none of it – save Shandra's death – because he could see no other way." She took a deep breath, and bent her head down, resting her forehead on her arms. Her voice was muffled as she added, almost to herself, "I will not become _him_ , either."

"So, another way to con a pair of baatezu out of two souls. Shouldn't be too difficult for such as we."

Okku grunted, the first noise out of Old Father Bear for some time. "You've killed many things, little one. Why not simply kill these two and _take_ what you want?"

"I doubt we can," Tarva said, raising her head again, mask pulled smoothly over her angular features. "There are five of us and two of them. When we faced Koraboros, we were ten against one, and even so... if Zhjaeve and Elanee hadn't saved all their healing, only seven of us would have returned to Crossroad Keep."

Koraboros... given the context, probably a pit fiend. He hadn't thought they were that strong.

Safiya broke the slightly awkward moment of silence. "Not to mention that I don't know where they're keeping the souls, or exactly what those circles around them do. It's possible you could waltz up to them waving a scythe, and they'd just laugh and shift back to Maladomini. It's also possible that with the right additions or manipulations to those circles I could force them to hand over the souls, but it's not my area of expertise. I'm not about to try." She rubbed a hand over her scalp. "Judging from the artwork in your cell, Gann, you know a bit about wards and bindings..."

"For _spirits_. I suspect devils are entirely different. I _know_ they are more likely to disarrange my face with talons."

"So we can't force them or threaten them," Tarva said. "We've nothing to bribe them with apart from souls or gold. I'd give them the gold..."

"You're awfully squeamish about this," Safiya noted. Gann suppressed himself with difficulty. Either Safiya had completely forgotten their little conversation after she'd made Tarva flee earlier, or she was far more talented at hiding her emotions than he'd ever guessed. "You've devoured dozens of spirits since you woke in Okku's barrow. Why are these souls so different?"

Gann wondered if he was the only one who saw Tarva's hands clench, then slowly relax. "There's a difference between an abrupt end to existence and an eternity of torment."

"Yes," Okku said, his tone, for once, unreadable.

And, as usual, it was up to Gann to change the topic. "I take it this Koraboros is the colleague to whom the baatezu referred?"

"Yes," Tarva said, and he _saw_ a fraction of the tension she always carried seep from her bones. "He was bound in Ammon's Haven; Shandra freed him. Later, he ambushed Ammon at Shandra's farm, and we only just managed to force him to retreat."

"You know more about this than I had thought," Kaelyn said, her voice serene as always, hiding an undertone of disapproval. It was curious, Gann reflected. There were so many similarities between the two: they both possessed soft voices and dark eyes, put their faith in gods, and were terrifying in battle, but there were really just as many points of divergence.

You simply didn't see them displayed as often.

"You have bargained with devils before," Kaelyn added. It was not – quite – a question.

"And demons. Hezrou, erinyes, succubus, balor, pit fiends," she admitted. "It was the only way." Her next words were addressed to a space somewhere between Kaelyn and Safiya, although she was still looking at Gann. "Do you think less of me for that?"

"Never," Gann said simply.

Okku huffed. "I have no opinion on the matter, little one."

Kaelyn looked at Tarva for a very long time, her black eyes unblinking. Then she shook her head, once, almost angrily.

"I doubt it would be possible for my opinion of you to be lowered," Safiya said, then covered her mouth. "Oh, that came out wrong."

"Just a little," Tarva said. "But thank you." She surveyed them for a moment, then sighed. "We haven't really gotten anywhere, have we?" Nobody disagreed with her. "Right. Let's go look for the last soul, let it stew a bit. I'm pretty sure the whole 'don't take too long' bit was just to throw us off-balance."

"It seemed to work," the shaman said, and was displeased to note that Safiya had beaten him to offering Tarva a hand to get to her feet. "I haven't seen you that flustered since..." Since the Wall. Since Bishop, he realised, and wondered why encounters with her past threw her composure so completely.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"This is our most perilous quest yet," Gann announced. "Trials and temptations await us at every turn; if once we fall to the lure, we may never escape..."

"I think you're the only one in danger here," Safiya replied, and turned the mirror around a few more degrees. She squinted at it. "Reflections present no difficulty to the rest of us, whose vanity is firmly under control."

"You just don't have as much to be vain about," Gann retorted.

"Just a moment." Tarva ignored the banter, and triggered the orb she'd taken from the wall; the beam of light hit the mirror squarely and shot down the corridor. "Hmmmm, yes. Now, just let me check – you're still not sure what we gain by doing this?"

The Red Wizard shrugged. "All I can say is that orb is my mother's work, and all these mirrors weren't here when I left. I doubt she'd install a lot of fragile glass in an Academy full of temperamental and unstable mages without a reason. Glass is _expensive_."

"Hrrrmph. I thought invading Thay would be far more exciting than this, little one. We are playing with shiny things like a magpie. We should be addressing your curse."

Tarva reached out to scratch Okku behind the ears. "I know. Until we come up with some way to deal with those devils, though, this is the best we've got. I hate it, too."

Old Father Bear tensed under her hand – not his usual reaction. "Safiya, I smell carrion."

"There wasn't enough of it upstairs to overpower your delicate little nose?"

The bear-god snorted. "Yes. But this is older, and I have not scented any more down here." He swung his head – the closest he could come to pointing – towards one room.

Safiya pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Master Inarus's chambers. None of the other instructors died in their rooms, if we can trust Okku's nose, and he's the sort to survive. Like a cockroach."

"Endearing," Tarva commented.

"You've no idea. I sometimes think teaching is only a secondary pursuit compared to the female students and instructors. His advances are... disturbing." Safiya tried the door. It was locked, but it answered to her mother's key, revealing nothing more sinister than a bedroom considerably tidier than Safiya's. Kaji fluttered towards a locked chest at the foot of the bed with a whoop of delight.

"Faugh. The bookcase," Okku rumbled.

"The bookcase smells of carrion," Safiya repeated blankly. "That's not the most informative or intelligible thing you've ever said, old bear."

"But he's right," Gann said. He had the dual advantages of being a little closer to the object in question and possessing senses rather more attuned to that kind of thing than hers. Or, in this case, the disadvantages. He retreated a little. What he wouldn't give for a rose, or anything aromatic enough to take the stench out of his nostrils.

"It doesn't make sense. Unless he's studying some very unusual tomes."

"Kaelyn, Gann, give me a hand here." Tarva pushed at the bookshelf. It did not move an inch, not even when the priestess and the shaman joined her.

Gann stepped back and studied it. "Is this the point where we resort to brute force once more? I believe one Fireball would do the trick."

"You were recently killed for committing sacrilege, Gann. Burn a book, and I'll do it again. More thoroughly." Safiya nodded to her familiar, who started inspecting the books. "Besides, this is a Red Wizard Academy. Almost everything here has decent spell resistance."

" _Almost_ everything?" Tarva asked.

"The main exception is first-year students." There was a faint click from the bookshelf, and Kaji flapped back to his locked chest. "Now try it."

It slid smoothly along previously-invisible tracks, revealing a small room and releasing a wave of far stronger stench. Not just carrion, but it was too strong to dissect. After Gann got his breath back and his eyes stopped watering...

Kaji was shrieking Safiya's name from the outer room. Perhaps he'd got that chest open after all.

... Dried blood, coating the floor. The mangled bodies of several women – or girls, rather; they were young, some merely children. A dark, oily flame burning on an altar. Heads impaled on stakes, racks, and other implements designed for the slow, painful disassembly of a living creature...

"Mistress Safiya. As always, it is a deep pleasure to have you in my room. And how generous of you, to share your guests. I have been anticipating this for quite some time, you know."

"Master Inarus," Safiya said, turning to face the Red Wizard who'd appeared in the doorway. Her fingers were flickering – as were his – Gann took the cue and started summoning an elemental. Okku roared as he and Tarva sprang for the man; Kaelyn was chanting behind him.

Inarus got his spell off first and suddenly Okku reversed directions, charging directly for Gann. The water elemental that appeared between them distorted the bear's form, but couldn't hide the snarling mouth and sharp teeth. Safiya's Meteor Swarm lit the room; Kaelyn's spell sank into Inarus with no visible change other than making him stagger a moment; Tarva whirled away from Inarus a moment before she came into reach of Safiya's spell.

"Tarva! Help!" Gann called as Okku ignored the elemental in favour of chasing him. The close quarters weren't helping; he was nimbler than Okku, but there was simply nowhere to run, and standing still enough to cast or use his bow was likely to be suicide.

"On it!" Tarva replied, and scrambled after Okku. The voices of Inarus, Safiya and Kaelyn blended into one unholy noise of spellcasting; Kaelyn's and Safiya's spells arrowed in on Okku, who stopped pursuing Gann and turned again for Inarus; Tarva was hit by the Red Wizard's spell and ceased her attack.

She simply stood there, holding her scythe as if she could not be bothered to drop it, staring about her with wide, confused eyes. Horrified, Gann put the pieces together – the bodies were female and Inarus was not spelling to kill, at least not as far as Tarva, Safiya and Kaelyn were concerned...

That realisation cost him precious seconds, but he stepped in front of Tarva to shelter her against any more magic. Okku had risen to his hind legs, his heavy paws raking out at the wizard – and that was not an attack he could afford to ignore, nor one he could try to spellcast through. Divine energies surged through all of them and formed protections; Safiya gritted her teeth and frowned in fierce concentration, as Gann's elemental joined Okku in harassing Inarus, and Gann himself fired off one of the more savage spells in his arsenal. He wasn't counting on it to kill – although it could, and he hoped it would – but it would certainly hurt the bastard.

Okku was keeping him from fighting back, even if the wizard's protections were holding against his teeth and the best that Kaelyn and Gann could do; Safiya was attempting some longer invocation, and judging from the power behind it, it was going to be impressive.

All he could think, when she cried out the final words and the air heated and stank of brimstone, was that it _had_ to be enough...

... and that was when a huge balor demon materialised in the room. It ignored Safiya, and stepped over the water elemental to stare down at Inarus. The Red Wizard tried to gabble off a spell, but he lost control of it when the tanar'ri picked him up. Its talons sank deep into the flesh of his waist, staining his robe a deeper scarlet, and he screamed, a horrible, thin sound that was only cut off when the demon's fangs severed his head from his neck.

Then, mercifully, Safiya dismissed the spell.

Kaelyn turned an accusing stare full on her. "You summoned that creature of evil."

"I did. I'm glad it worked. I don't think we would have – "

"Gann?" Tarva's voice, behind him, was soft and uncertain. "You're here? You're real?"

"Solipsism," Safiya murmured, turning away from Kaelyn. "I never liked that spell."

"I am," he answered, taking her gently by the shoulders. "You're unhurt?"

"A bit fuzzy in the head," she said. "What happened, exactly?"

Gann gave her the short version. "Inarus had you under a spell, until Safiya summoned a balor to eat him."

"A balor." Tarva's eyes widened minutely. "A _balor_. That's it."

"That's what, exactly?"

Kaji came burbling up to Safiya before Tarva could answer, carrying a shining orb. Safiya took it from him. "A soul. It probably belonged to one of – these girls."

Tarva looked up at her, fighting down her Hunger. "Can you... can you free her?"

"The casing is only a more fragile version of a phylactery," Safiya said with a shrug. "All you'd need to do is smash it."

"Do it."

"You do realise we could use this to bargain with the d-"

"We don't need it. Please, Safiya." The Red Wizard studied her friend for a moment, then hurled the globe to the ground. Unsurprisingly, it shattered, leaving behind only shards and a momentary flash of relief on Tarva's face. She exhaled, long and slow. "Good."

"That dealt with," Safiya said, stepping over the broken glass, "it seems to me you've a cunning plan, which I'd like to hear more about."

"And don't forget the mirrors," Gann added. "Important or no, they're still very ornamental. At least while I'm passing them."


	56. Again Safiya

"Kaji," Safiya nodded to the bookshelf, "find the latch."

Okku sniffed, his pale eyes bright with respect. "Your senses are keener than I thought. There is barely even a scent."

Safiya laughed. "Logic, old bear. We've been all over this floor. There is nowhere else for this mirror-beam to go. Therefore, there must be some way forward here."

"Got it, Mistress!" the homunculus crowed. Kaelyn slid the bookcase back, revealing a door; Safiya unlocked it with her mother's key and glanced into the passageway. "Oh, look at that. A _mirror_."

"Nobody was arguing with you, Safiya," Gann pointed out.

"That doesn't make being right any less satisfying."

Tarva was tugging on her hair again. "If you keep doing that," Gann said, "you won't have any hair left, and you'll look just like Safiya."

"Is that supposed to be a deterrent?" the Red Wizard asked, over her shoulder.

"Doing what?" Tarva asked. He nodded at her; she looked down at the hank of blue-black hair twisted in her fingers. "Oh, right." She relaxed her grasp. "It helps me think."

"I've noticed," Safiya said, standing back from the mirror and frowning at it. "Thinking aside, would you mind triggering the orb?"

They followed the trail of mirrors to a final room, its equipment – to Gann's eyes, at least – identically incomprehensible to that in the room where they'd found the orb. Tarva adjusted the last mirror, so that the beam of light shone directly into something that looked like a receiver.

It did nothing.

"Safiya?" Tarva asked.

"Pass me the orb," the Red Wizard said, and started poking and prodding at the slender stone pillars.

"I don't even know why I was carrying it in the first place," Tarva murmured, setting it in Safiya's hand. "There are only two people here _less_ qualified to carry a potentially fragile wizardly ball. One has no brains to speak of, and the other doesn't even have hands to hold it."

"I had better be the second one, spirit-eater," Okku rumbled, showing his teeth. Gann wondered to assign the gesture the humanoid or the ursine meaning. Possibly a combination of both, knowing Old Father Bear.

"Kaji has brains," Safiya protested absently, tapping the orb again. "I installed them myself. Perhaps they'd deteriorated a bit before I got to them, but... Oh, I see." She turned back to Tarva with a triumphant flourish – which, Gann had to admit, she did rather well. "We need someone at the other end to serve as a focus."

"Anyone in particular?" Tarva asked.

Safiya shrugged. "It shouldn't matter, although I doubt Kaji will work. It might even prove interesting, if I'm reading the conjunction of Dwynnej's Sulim Reflections and Neigai's Vortex correctly." She handed the orb back to Tarva. "I'll stay here and monitor this end. Just trigger the spell when someone's standing on the podium; I'll send Kaji to keep you updated."

Tarva weighed that up a moment. "Okku, will you stay with Safiya? We haven't seen anyone else down here, but I'd rather not take any chances."

"I come to Thay, and guard a Red Wizard. Little one, you take me strange places indeed." Okku shook his ponderous head, and paced to the doorway. "I'll keep watch for you. Don't take too long. My patience is not endless."

"Thank you, my friend," Tarva said, giving the bear a quick scratch behind the ears. Kaelyn and Gann trailed behind her as they retraced their steps and the line of mirrors.

"Tarva," Kaelyn said hesitantly, "no good can come of dealing with those devils."

"I know," the half-elf admitted. "I think I've found a way... still, I hate the thought of it. The moment you stop and talk to them, you're practically guaranteeing their victory. But, Kaelyn..." she sighed, "... what else can I do? That door is the only lead we have, and time's running out; as far as I can see, it's get through that door, or give up and present my neck to Okku's teeth."

"Or _what?_ " Gann demanded. The conversation had taken a distinctly wrong turn at the last half-sentence.

"Ah," Tarva ducked her head. "I... hadn't meant to say that last bit."

"But since you have, would you care to explain it?"

She wouldn't look at him. "Okku promised me – or perhaps I promised him – that if there comes a time when it's necessary, if I lose control or threaten innocents, or if it becomes clear that there's no cure... he'll grant me a clean ending."

Caught somewhere in the unpleasant area between shock, denial and horror, the _last_ thing Gann needed to hear was Kaelyn's voice saying "Good."

"Good? What could possibly be good about that?" He knew his voice was shaking; couldn't seem to stop it.

Kaelyn's black eyes focused on him. "Tarva is under a curse which causes her to inflict suffering on those around her, if she cannot suppress it. She has done well, so far, but we all know that this state of affairs cannot last indefinitely. When she can no longer contain the spirit-eater, it is only right that her suffering is ended swiftly."

"Thank you, Kaelyn," Tarva murmured, with just a hint of sarcasm. "Gann. That's the very last resort, and we're not there yet. I think –"

"No," he told her, with absolute finality, and now she did look up at him. "No. It will _never_ come to that. I made you a promise."

"You did," Tarva said, and then a small crease appeared between her eyebrows, and she repeated it thoughtfully. "You... did."

"We're here," Kaelyn interrupted, stepping onto the circular dais.

"Oh... yes. Right." The weapon master brought the spell-orb to life; the beam of light shot from the wall, turned golden as it passed through Kaelyn, and followed the path of mirrors out of sight. It hung there for a moment, then dissipated.

"Is that all?" the priestess asked.

"How should I know?" Tarva answered. "At least you have magic."

"Not this kind. It is godless and mechanical, and I do not care for it."

They heard the clumsy flapping of Kaji's wings well before the homunculus's face appeared at the door. "Mistress says, 'try blue-face'."

"'Blue-face'?" Tarva asked, the corner of her lips twitching. "I doubt that's an exact quote. It doesn't sound like Safiya."

"Nooo... Mistress said him," Kaji pointed to Gann, "forget name."

"Gann," Tarva said, "looks like you're up." She sent Kaji back as Kaelyn yielded her place on the podium to the hagspawn. "Or should I say 'blue-face'?"

"Don't." He'd expected something when Tarva triggered the orb, but the actual sensation, as though the alien magic was tugging at something lodged deep within him, was extremely uncomfortable. Not painful; it wasn't even physical, but his instincts screamed at him to _stop it_. He barely noticed that the beam of light was no longer golden, but a bright violet-blue. Then it stopped, much to his relief, and it was as though it had never been. He turned to look at Kaelyn. "Well, that's unpleasant."

"I noticed nothing," Kaelyn said, regarding him steadily. Did the cleric never blink? "You are unharmed, Gannayev?"

"What's the matter?" Tarva echoed her.

He tried, and failed, to find words to explain. The feeble, "It's... disconcerting," was hardly helpful.

Tarva slanted a slightly amused glance at him. "Well, rather you than me."

"How very selfless of you."

Kaji arrived back. "Mistress says, 'try spirit-eater'."

Gann could not resist the urge to smirk. "I think you spoke too soon, Tarva."

"It seems I did," she answered, and stepped between the stony spikes herself as Kaji fluttered away. "Who wants to take this?"

Gann plucked the orb from her hand. "Ready?"

"Now you're making me nervous." If he was, there wasn't the slightest trace of it on her face.

"You? Never. How do you... ah, I see." He tapped one point of the orb's surface, and the equipment burst into life. The light shot through Tarva, and turned... a number of different colours that refused to combine. There was a thin ribbon of a blue so dark it was nearly black, wisps of the vibrant green-gold that her scythe flared in combat, but most of it was a harsh white glare that left a dark afterimage stabbed across his eyes when the light died.

Tarva's hands were clenched into fists, and her voice a little unsteady. "I apologise for the mockery, Gann. That was, indeed, unpleasant."

"I still do not understand why I did not feel – whatever it is that you felt," Kaelyn said softly.

"Sensitivity to the spirits, perhaps." Tarva shrugged. "Does it really matter?"

"Being attuned to the spirits is of little aid here," Gann said. The unnatural emptiness of a land deprived of its guardians had been grating on his nerves since their arrival.

"It is very empty," Tarva agreed. "It's almost a relief; only the people to worry about."

Kaji came back, frowning with concentration to the point his face was hardly recognisable. "Mistress says, 'come back misbegotten son of a sextant and a syphilitic scroll why won't you work Kaji I said go get them'."

"Well," Tarva said, "that hardly sounds promising."

"It does sound entertaining, though. Quite the vocabulary our dear Safiya has."

They arrived in time to hear further examples: eloquent and highly specific descriptions of the parentage – and occasionally sexual preferences – of the unfortunate equipment drifted quite a way in the quiet Academy. Okku met them at the door, rolling his eyes. "She fusses more than a beaver with a dam."

Gann nearly laughed when Kaelyn winced at a particularly virulent curse. "You once said you didn't know any profanity. Here, it appears, we have a master of the art."

"I do not care to learn, Gannayev."

"I didn't think an inanimate object was even capable -" Tarva said.

Safiya turned around in a hurry, her face very nearly as red as her robe, but recovered her aplomb quickly. "Under the right conditions, it is. I walked in on a student experiment once."

"I _really_ don't want to hear any more about that." Tarva walked past them to the equipment, and studied the image of herself that hung there. At least, Gann assumed, it was supposed to be her; the clothes were right, as were the scythe and the loose dark hair, but the face was covered with an ugly mask. It took him a moment to place it –

"Not this again," Tarva muttered under her breath, and reached out to the image.

It rippled around her hand, then gathered itself into a glowing ball, which dropped into Tarva's hand. She nearly dropped it.

"Careful!" Safiya hurried forward and took it from the half-elf. "So that's the trick! The presence of the original acts as a catalyst, precipitating the soul image formed through Neigai's Vortex and focused in the Sulim Reflection, triggering crystallisation into the final incomplete soul state."

"I don't think I understood one-tenth of that," Tarva sighed. "Even _Sand_ was – marginally – more comprehensible. Is this what we were looking for?" Safiya nodded. "If I ask a question, can you answer without drowning me in technical details?"

The Red Wizard shrugged. "I can try. I make no promises."

"Why was my reflection wearing the mask?"

Safiya ran a hand over her scalp tattoos. "Neigai's Vortex is intended to show different aspects of a personality. It's strongest when that personality has already been divided, but all of us have enough potential other-paths and secondary natures to throw at least four images in a Vortex. Yours wore the mask, which is clearly linked with your curse in some way."

"And Gann and Kaelyn?" Tarva asked.

"What was my reflection?" Kaelyn echoed.

Safiya grimaced. "Nothing either of you'd be particularly happy with, I suspect. Kaelyn was herself, but with black wings –"

"A _lie_!" Kaelyn cried out, her wings flaring suddenly. Gann was rather taken aback; he would never have suspected such passion for her looks lurked under the priestess's serene countenance. Her next words explained it, though. It was not her _appearance_ she was concerned with. " _I am not Fallen_!"

"No," Tarva agreed quietly. "You are not. As I do not wear that mask, and Gann is not –" she looked to Safiya.

'- an ordinary, ugly hagspawn," the Red Wizard supplied.

"How insulting," Gann murmured. It was so obvious – and pathetic – a lie that it did not bother him at all. But Kaelyn... if she knew she was not Fallen, why should a mirror's claim otherwise provoke such a reaction?

"Come on," Tarva said to Kaelyn. "Let's go back to Safiya's room. I need to talk to you all about how I think we can deal with those devils, and that's going to take a while."


	57. Again Kaelyn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't decide whether it's a good thing or not, but the moment I start writing banter for Safiya, Tarva and Gann – sometimes Okku and Kaelyn get in on the act, but it's mostly those three– it's so hard to drag them back on topic again. I get carried away, or they do, and the next thing I know, the conversation's somewhere entirely different than I meant... Anyway, whether it's overall positive or negative, it's always fun to write, and I tend to be self-indulgent. Witness the fact that this is one of the longest chapters in the fic, and practically nothing happens in it.
> 
> In a side note, that's where the rather ridiculous moment near the end (I suspect you'll know it when you see it) came from. It was really a bit too much, but I couldn't resist.

As it turned out, Tarva's plot was simple enough. Not easy, but simple. There were two problems with it, though. Firstly, as Safiya pointed out more than once, none of them knew enough to be certain it would work – and if it didn't, the spellcasters were putting in a lot of effort for uncertain benefit.

Secondly, Kaelyn's scruples were proving problematic. In theory, Gann was working with Safiya while Tarva attempted to talk Kaelyn around and tend to the joints of her armour at the same time. In practice, he was eavesdropping, and therefore making very slow progress.

"Gann. Concentrate," Safiya repeated. "I know you've never exactly _learnt_ a spell before, and this isn't the best way to start, but you can do this. Recite the incantation for me again, and remember to elongate the penultimate vowel sound."

"I'm not sure this is technically possible," Gann muttered, and ran over the syllables in his head.

"The rules are a little different with a spell of this level," Safiya replied, but she didn't sound entirely certain either.

"Tarva. _I will not do this_."

Tarva gazed at Kaelyn, weighing up the priestess through a long moment of silence.

Which Safiya broke. "Gann! You are dealing with a very powerful spell which might just snap back on you if you don't concentrate, and believe me, death is the best outcome you can hope for if it does! Recite." He tried. "No, no, no! Name of Szass Tam, you divine spellcasters are as slow as sorcerers..." Safiya ran her hand over her scalp and turned back to the notes. "There must be something. Keep at that invocation – don't put any power behind it yet, or we're all in trouble - while I look at this."

"Kaelyn, this is the only way I can think of to get those souls from the fiends without torturing and sacrificing innocents. _Please_ , if you can see any other way, tell me. _Anything_ clean, I'll take it." She waited for Kaelyn to respond, then sighed when the half-celestial said nothing. "This is the best I can do," Tarva said. "I can't force you against your conscience. I wouldn't even try, if I weren't desperate."

Kaelyn stared back, utterly motionless. Tarva dropped her head to her hands for a moment, then sighed again. "All right. Kaelyn, if I understand correctly, you don't learn spells; you pray, and Ilmater grants them to you."

"That is so."

"Then this is all I ask: pray to your god to grant you this spell, if, and only if, it would be a right action to use it in this case. I will abide by Ilmater's decision."

Kaelyn gestured towards a murmuring Safiya and Gann, who was a little aghast that Tarva would accept the word of Kaelyn and her god over her own best judgement. "You will cease this folly if Ilmater does not agree?"

"No," Tarva said quietly. "I cannot, and I cannot see it as folly. But I will not ask you again to participate, nor to witness. You will be innocent of the taint of dealing with devils."

After a moment, Kaelyn nodded. "I will pray."

"Thank you," Tarva said, and bent her head again to her armour maintenance, as Kaelyn found a corner of Safiya's room to immerse herself in doing just that.

"I should have thought of that myself," Safiya murmured thoughtfully. Gann hadn't even realised that Safiya had turned to watch the altercation until she spoke. "Learning a spell is one thing, but learning it as a wizard would is another. Perhaps we can work with that." The Red Wizard stared at him, until her mouth stretched into a grin. "Except that I just realised I don't actually know how you gain or cast spells. Is it similar to Kaelyn, only with spirits instead of a god?"

Okku snorted. Either that was a comment, or the gaudy bear was dreaming again.

"Not exactly... no." Gann scavenged for words to describe something as familiar to him as breathing, and much harder to explain. "The more I deal with the spirits, the easier it is to walk in their world, which overlaps with our own. The more I walk with the spirits, the more like them I become, and the easier it is to cast magic as they do."

"That's no explanation at all," Safiya said. He shrugged; he didn't have a better description, except the simpler 'I just do'. "Okku, how do the spirits work magic?"

Without opening his eyes, Okku replied, "Do not ask me, Safiya. I have teeth and claws; what need have I for magic?"

"But your subjects use it," the Red Wizard persisted. "Also, if Gann gets progressively more like a spirit, where does that end? With him becoming a telthor?"

Okku grunted a laugh. "Not him."

"We're getting a little off track, here," Gann noted. Not from any desire to stop them talking about him (although Okku denying the possibility of preserving his handsome face in blue, glowing form forever was a little saddening; the loss to Rashemen's scenery would be devastating), but because Tarva needed him. Ideally they needed all three spellcasters prepared, and Kaelyn had gravely endangered that. If it were only Safiya, the advantage would be squarely back on the devils' side; they would be forced to hand over the souls. If there were two of them – at least, if Tarva and he reckoned odds similarly – perhaps her plan would have a mouse's chance in a cat's den of working.

He looked over at her, so small and fragile, dark shadows under her eyes and cheekbones, and wanted several things - some of them mutually exclusive – so badly that his heart ached. To protect her. To have her fighting beside him. To kiss her. To see her freed. To take her to bed. To charge those devils barehanded and make them pay for causing her even a moment's concern. To hit himself over the head for even thinking anything as monumentally stupid as that last one, and not caring.

Tarva glanced up, as if she'd felt the weight of his gaze. "Gann, give me your bow." He was handing it over before he thought to ask why. "You've work to do, and I can tend it for you." She already had Kaelyn's mace and her scythe lying beside her. "It will keep me busy while Safiya tortures you."

"I'll have you know that I am a very soft teacher by Red Wizard standards," Safiya sniffed scornfully. "Master Galen, whose class I took over, used to penalise students a week without their soul for every hour they were late submitting an assignment. And the instructors before my mother's time used to kill students who failed a class. "

"Don't kill Gann," Tarva told her friend. "If we're going to pull this off, we need all the casters we can get." Then she blinked. "What about Master Djafi? Would he help?"

Safiya shook her head. "I don't want to put him at risk. It's already a miracle he survived Araman's coup; if he's seen associating with me..." Safiya hesitated a moment. "Actually, how did he-?"

Gann interrupted by pronouncing the invocation. Incorrectly. Again. It was going to be a long day.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Long, certainly, but not necessarily objectionable. It was mostly quiet, but as it turned out, Okku snored, and Tarva had moments of thinking aloud again – not loud enough that he could hear what she was saying, unfortunately. She'd finished with mace, scythe, bow and even started polishing Safiya's staff – not that shininess would make anything more than a cosmetic difference - before Safiya was entirely satisfied with Gann's pronunciation. Then she stared at him, her lips pursed. "You should probably take off that armour. I want to make sure that you're getting the somatic component exactly right."

"Really?" Gann replied, with an exaggerated pout. If he had to endure much more of Safiya's merciless drilling without even the smallest chance to assert his own personality, he'd go stark raving insane. "Of all the reasons I've ever been asked to remove my armour by a beautiful woman, that is easily the most depressing."

Safiya cocked her head to one side with a sly smile. "Well, you can remove more than that, if you want. In more advanced spells, some instructors – the unlamented Inarus among them – insist on the students being naked."

" _What_?"

"Well, it's easier to be certain they're moving correctly when there's no fabric in the way." Safiya cast a mischievous glance over her shoulder at Tarva, inviting her to join the teasing. "I never thought it necessary, but in a case like this, it might be a good idea. What do you think, Tarva?"

The half-elf had been lost in her own thoughts, and was frowning ever-so-slightly when she looked up. It intensified when Gann met her eyes – that soft look of puzzlement that he'd seen several times since the Wall had hardened and was almost a clear, fully-articulated question. He realised, with a not-unpleasant shock, exactly what she'd thinking so hard about.

"I'm sorry, Safiya," the weapon master was saying. "What were you asking me?"

"I wanted your opinion – we were just discussing whether Gann should get naked."

Her hands slipped on the staff. "Oh. Um. Any particular reason?"

"Safiya says it's apparently a Red Wizard technique for ensuring the correct spellcasting motions. I entertain doubts on the subject."

"I'm insulted," Safiya claimed. "My motives are entirely pure."

Tarva just shook her head. "I have no opinion to offer. You _know_ spellcasting isn't my strength. Just warn me if you're going to, ah, need a little privacy."

Safiya burst out laughing. "Tarva, my friend, you are impossible. Gann: armour off, clothes on. Please."

"And hand me the armour," Tarva added. "I'm running out of things to do here."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Learning spells, Gann had decided, was a ridiculous amount of work. He'd spent the better part of a day being meticulously corrected by Safiya, and all had to show for it was a string of not-quite-nonsense syllables, and a sequence of small, meaningless movements he couldn't perform quite smoothly enough to satisfy his teacher.

"A little more space between your third and fourth fingers," Safiya said, yet again. "Remember to keep the second finger close to the third – no, not overlapping - and the same for the fourth and fifth fingers."

"And the thumb?" Gann asked – one of the many slippery details he was not certain he was getting right.

"The thumb is ke–"

" _Sweet Chauntea have mercy!"_ Even Kaelyn's head turned at the vehemence of the exclamation.

"Tarva?" Safiya turned and saw, as Gann did, that the half-elf had jumped to her feet, dropped his armour, and had a look of wild-eyed shock on her face. The latter, only for an instant, before she got herself under control again, although something almost panicked remained about her eyes. "Are you all right, Tarva?"

"Ye – no. No. I need to – I've got to get _out_. I've got to –" she shook her head violently. "The Soul Repository, Safiya. Can the souls there be freed?"

"You'd have a few problems," Safiya answered, after a moment, slowly and soothingly. "First, the caretaker golem would probably not be impressed, and it's been given powers to deal with that kind of thing. On the other hand, I could probably disable it for you. Second, there's not a single student or instructor here, except me, who won't take offence at you trying to destroy the Repository. Admittedly none of the others would be quite as bad as Inarus – he was our offensive spell specialist – but there'd be a lot more of them. If you really feel this is something you have to do, wait until the students go home and the instructors retire for the evening, and we might get away with it. Third, you could free all the souls there, but they'll just be replaced. You wouldn't stop the practice, short of purging Thay of the Red Wizards entirely, and I _know_ you don't have time for that."

"I do," Okku rumbled, suddenly deciding to participate in the conversation.

"Then try it some other time," Safiya shot back.

"You're right, Safiya, I know. I just – I need to go do something, I need to get away, I have to." Tarva was almost begging, her eyes fixed very firmly on Safiya.

The Red Wizard frowned slightly. "Cabin fever? Claustrophobia?"

Tarva shook her head again. "No, I just –"

"- you just need it. Right. It will be -" Safiya looked over at a complicated mechanical contrivance resting on a chest of drawers "– well, that went surprisingly quickly. School's out in half an hour. Make it an hour, and you're probably safe enough. Can you hold out until then?"

"I don't think I have a choice," Tarva admitted. "But-"

"I am somewhat restless myself, little one. I have been dozing all day; I will grow fat and lazy at this rate." Okku showed his teeth. "Fight me."

" _Yes._ " Tarva picked up her scythe, then glanced around the room. "We don't have enough room in here. We'll go out in the corridor – we'll call you if there are any problems –"

"My money's on you," Gann called after Tarva. He knew she heard, but she didn't even glance back at him.

Ah.

Safiya waited until Tarva was safely away to turn to Gann and ask, "Do you know what all that was about?"

"No," he admitted, "but I have a suspicion."

"I see," Safiya said, and he thought that perhaps she did. "Back to work?"

There was a low, furious growl from the hallway; Okku's voice carried a long way when his blood was roused. "Of course."

It wasn't more than an hour before the bear and the weapon master trailed back in, both looking bloodily the worse for wear. Tarva was using her scythe like a walking stick, one of her eyes was blackened, and she was cradling a badly mangled hand against her chest; Okku was limping on three of his paws, and most of the few white patches of his fur had been re-dyed in scarlet. He was also laughing. "Ah, little one, you should have been born a bear. That was glorious!"

"I don't think I'd make a very good bear," Tarva said, as Gann spoke the words of a much more familiar incantation over her. On closer inspection of her hand, it seemed she'd caught it in Okku's teeth, and he winced inwardly.

The spell complete, Gann rose up on his toes so he could make sure the livid bruise around her eye had faded. Under other circumstances he would have simply turned her head, but if his guess on the cause of her panic was correct, he wasn't sure how she'd react if he touched her – and he did not think he could bear it if she flinched from him.

Her eyes met his for just an instant before she flicked her gaze away, but that was enough. She'd understood what he'd been trying to say that night. She knew that he loved her.

Gann turned away and ran through the gestures again – but he watched out of the corner of his eyes.

Safiya called Kaelyn to help, and exclaimed over the injuries. "I was expecting a few bruises and scrapes, not actual blood." Her eyes slid up to Tarva's face. "Feeling better?"

"Much," she answered shortly. "But I still want to free the souls of the Repository."

"I'm not surprised," Safiya murmured, as Kaelyn's spell bathed Okku in golden light. "By the way, who won?"

"Hard to say," Tarva answered, and he heard the effort it took her to maintain her usual façade. "If we'd been fighting in earnest, I would have been wearing armour – which I will definitely make a point of doing before we try anything like that again."

"I would have taken your hand off at the wrist," Okku rumbled. "Without healing, you wouldn't have lasted long after that."

"And I would have hamstrung you properly first. More importantly, there's no way in the Nine Hells I would _ever_ have thrown away my weapon and closed with you."

"You are insane," Safiya muttered.

"I kept my scythe for the first part of it. After that," Tarva shrugged, and unfolded one of her hands to reveal a long, curved and blood-stained length of bear claw. "Want it back, Okku?"

"You attacked Okku with his own claw," Safiya sounded almost dazed.

"As I said, Thayan – _glorious!_ " Old Father Bear butted Tarva. "Keep it, little one, and wear it proudly; I give it to you of my own will."

And Tarva would have no idea what that meant, or how rarely a gesture of such trust was offered by the spirits. Least of all by one as powerful as Okku; one of his claws, with his own blood upon it – and _hers_ – he shook his head at the thought of it, hoped she wouldn't do anything as stupid and gravely insulting as refuse it. "Safiya, put it on a chain or a bit of leather cord for her," Gann interceded.

Tarva replaced her amulet – a delicate-looking pendant with a large blue stone – with Okku's talisman, and put the amulet carefully away with a long, unreadable look.


	58. Sune

Gann wanders through the dreams of the Academy. Behind him lies the familiar dreamscapes of his companions, save Tarva, who keeps watch. There are surprisingly few dreamers here; Araman's purge seems to have removed most of the staff. Those who remain dream of power, and of blood.

His own thoughts are scarcely better company, and so he simply lets his dreams drift around him, fragments of emotions and memories that surface like bright fish in a murky pond and disappear just as suddenly. Most of them are linked with Tarva – how her hand had felt in his when they faced his mother, his first glimpse of her face in his Mulsantir cell, finding her in her nightmare, when he'd kissed her, the knowledge in her eyes – but that is more difficult to face.

He'd phrased a riddle to leave it in her hands, but he hadn't anticipated just how hard waiting for her answer would be. Not that her behaviour to him was changed, but perhaps only he had noticed how carefully she was holding that balance. That evening had been... awkward.

After Safiya had pronounced herself satisfied with Gann's mastery of the spell – although he'd yet to actually cast it - they'd trailed upstairs and found the Academy empty. Safiya dealt with the golem caretaker of the Soul Repository with rather more ease than she'd expected; apparently maintaining the golem had been one of her responsibilities, and Araman hadn't thought to revoke her authority. It was a simple matter to shut the caretaker down, and then to sweep the glass orbs off the shelves. Okku had remained outside – a floor littered with thousands of shards of glass was no place for anyone without good boots – and Tarva with him. She'd claimed that the Repository was too great a challenge to her control of the Hunger. Gann has no doubt that her words had been true; he only wonders, now, if they had been the whole truth.

What is he to do?

There is the sound of voices unlike any he has heard before; Gann cannot say whether they are very loud and unimaginably distant, or very soft and whispering beside his ear. This much he knows: there are two and they are almost entirely unlike each other. They are both assuredly feminine, and they share that quality of utter strangeness. He listens – indeed, cannot help but listen, and although he cannot comprehend their words, he knows that they are arguing. He strives to broaden his dream to encompass them, to create a space where he may see and understand these strangers.

He pushes his dream further than he ever has, and learns little more. They appear, now, as two points of light - one a vivid crimson, the other a glowing green – with the same peculiar distortion of distance as the voices. The vagueness of it is almost as frustrating as the loss of control in his own dream.

The green one (and she is slightly less alien than the other) beseeches the red one for help, or for a favour. The red one demurs – she cannot, or she will not, or she is not permitted. She regrets this: something belongs to her as well, or it would amuse her, or she has no claim.

Gann strains to open his mouth and question them, but it is impossible, as no act in dreaming has ever been before for him. The green one is surprised, or interested, or distressed, or pleased that he tries. The red one agrees, or laughs, or dismisses his awareness of them as irrelevant. She scrutinises him in minute detail – this alone is clear and unmistakable – and then, for a long time, the voices are silent.

The red voice commands him **WAKE**

... and Gann woke, jolted from his dream by a sound he could not remember hearing, with a confused impression of red and green fading faster with every heartbeat. Something about voices in the distance?

There _was_ a soft voice, and a faint light in the darkness. Tarva, of course – but why was she out in the corridor, and to whom could she be speaking? Gann could make out the shapes of Okku, Safiya and Kaelyn safely asleep, so anyone Tarva could be talking with was an ally of the Academy at best, and a dangerous enemy at worst – she would have called out and woken them if she had been openly attacked.

And she did not sound distressed, or worried; if anything, her words were deliberate and calm. Gann stilled, realising he could decipher them.

"... for Kaelyn, in her strength and grace and steadfast care of us. Intercede with Lurue for Okku, and thank her for his courage, and his trust in me – Chauntea, may it not be misplaced!" She sighed, and Gann relaxed, realising that she was not, actually, speaking to anyone. He composed himself to sleep again.

"Great Mother, I pray for Safiya, who has walked this path with me from the start. She seems unfazed by all this business about Lienna and Nefris, but it cannot be easy for her... she speaks of her mother with such love. And she is Faithless... Lady, I know it is her choice and hers alone, but please - the Wall is such a terrible thing. Safiya does not deserve that fate. No one does. Please, save her. And Gann..." her voice trailed off.

He didn't really want to hear her praying for his soul, but sleep was proving uncharacteristically elusive. She moved, and the light grew stronger against his closed eyelids as she re-entered the room. Her voice was softer, more passionate when she spoke again. "Gann. Chauntea... how could I have been so blind? Why didn't I – What shall I do?" The soft sound of her footsteps again, and her voice came from a different corner of the room. "I remember all that Father taught me, but – but... no. I trust _him_. What do I say? I wish – Gann. Oh, gods."

The heavy silence filled the room, and then she took a shuddering breath. He could hear the strain in her voice as she fought to keep it level. "Gann. You can stop pretending to be asleep now."

An endless instant passed, in which his mind raced around in pointless circles, before he surrendered to the inevitable and sat up. Tarva was regarding him steadily, her face set like stone save for the uncertainty that flickered in her eyes. She jerked her head, motioning him to join her out in the corridor.

Once there, she opened her mouth and shut it again, looking almost helpless.

Gann leant against the wall, the nonchalant pose failing to mask his tension. He could not look at her longer, for fear and for hope. Her words had been so ambiguous... He forced himself to speak instead. "You understand, then?"

"I - I think so... I mean, yes. Once I'd thought it through – your promise and Casavir - and paradoxes are rarely any such thing –" Tarva seemed to realise that she was babbling, and cut herself off. She spoke slowly, and very quietly. "The thing you were speaking of, that you'd lost and found and healed – it was your heart."

Only one word, which came hoarse and faint from his dry mouth. "Yes."

"That is..." and she was finding it as difficult to speak as he was, "you... you love me."

"Yes," Gann answered, and then the words began to spill from him. "Yes, I love you. As I had never thought possible – I do not believe I possessed the capacity until you. Even if one is in love without it being..." and this was harder, but he knew it was possible, perhaps even probable, "reciprocated, I say it is still love." One swift glance upward was all he dared, and he saw nothing. "And my heart is yours entirely."

" _Gann_." Just that, just his name, in a low, pained tone. "Gods, Gann, what can I say?"

And that hurt, as nothing had since witnessing the truth of his parents' fate. "The truth, Tarva." He took a deep breath, and added quietly, "I am not Casavir – I made you a promise, and I will not leave you before I see it fulfilled, no matter what you may say to me now."

"I never confused you with Casavir," Tarva said, and continued as though that one statement was the catalyst that transformed all her confused emotions into a torrent of anguished words. "I know you much better than that. You're handsome and impossibly vain and far too clever for your own good. You always seem to know what to say, and to understand what's going on inside my head even when I don't." She was pacing now. "I've come to depend on you, to know that you'll always be there – I trust you as I've trusted few people in my life... and it doesn't make _sense_. Safiya is the closest friend I've had since Shandra's death, but I don't worry over her when we're parted. It doesn't feel _wrong_ when I dream and she's not there."

Slowly, a small, impossible hope grew within him. Perhaps –

"I was _helpless_ at the Wall. Weak, useless, pathetic. You were there, and you saved me, and you held me, and just for a moment... Safiya, Kaelyn, Okku - they would all put their lives between me and danger. I'd do the same for them. But it was different, then. Safe. As though... as though nothing could touch me or hurt me, as long as your arms were around me. You wouldn't let it."

"No, I would not," Gann said, but she didn't seem to hear, still talking, still pacing.

"I can't imagine how hard it would be, facing – all this – without you by my side. I don't know why. Safiya and Kaelyn are both stronger spellcasters, Okku's an amazing fighter, and you – you just do a little bit of everything. It shouldn't help so much - I don't understand it. You shouldn't matter so much... I could do this without you. I'd find a way. I don't have a choice." Tarva came to a sudden halt, facing away from him. "But I don't want to. It's selfish of me, but I don't want to face this without you, Gann."

"Tarva," he spoke her name softly, and knew her attention was on him. He felt his way carefully. "Tarva, allowing for some minor points of perspective... that is exactly how I feel about you. _Exactly._ "

"Oh." She was very still. Had he... had he said too much, or the wrong thing, or – the half-elf spoke again, very softly, more to herself than to him. "Then _that_ is what it means? Is that l..." she trailed into silence.

"I am _such_ a fool," she murmured, and for a moment Gann remembered the last time he'd heard her say something like that. But this time her voice was not bitter, but rich with strangely rueful amusement – and with wonder. "Yes. Yes, of course it is." She turned back to him, a tremulous smile on her lips and her eyes alight with more than he had ever hoped to see, "You're right. And yes, Gann-of-Dreams," Tarva said, holding her hands out to him, "yes, I love you."

She _meant_ it. His fingers had only brushed hers before a powerful shock ran through him. It felt like – like when the owl-spirit Geiborah had opened his Dreamer's Eye and imbued him with the Dreamer's Voice. Just as then, there was a moment's disorientation, and then a change within him. It was subtle; a small warmth, like a flame, that blossomed even as he focused on it. Both tentative and fierce, equally new and deep-rooted, woven through and through with Tarva's presence, he felt her love for him as a tangible force.

"Gann? Did you feel th – _oh._ "

"Yes," he murmured, and drew her to him – slowly, carefully. For all he knew, she would vanish at any moment, or push him away. Surely it could not be true; he could not be so fortunate, so happy... but the reality of her love was not something he could doubt when he felt its steady presence.

And she was nestled in his arms, her head tucked under his chin, fragile and weightless as a songbird, but unmistakeably _there_. Gann eased back from her, just enough so that he could look at the face she turned up to him, and spoke lightly, even playfully, knowing that she would understand. "I was going to kiss you, but then I happened to recall that you asked me not to do that."

"I think," she murmured, playing along with him, "that under the circumstances, you can assume I've changed my mind."

"Now," Gann said, tracing the curve of her lips with a finger that trembled, "what kind of a gentleman would I be to disobey your express wish? No, Tarva, I won't do that." With an effort, he forced his hands to drop to his sides. "You're just going to have to kiss me."

She took a deep, shaky breath. "You're... taking a bit of a risk there. I've never - I'd probably get it wrong, you know."

Could she be any more desirable? "It is really not as complicated a matter as you seem to think," he said, and resisted the urge to demonstrate.

"Well, I do remember this..." Tarva whispered, and raised her eyes to his, watching for his reaction as her hand came up and trailed over his cheekbone. He knew he made some small, inarticulate sound when her fingers traced his jawline in her careful duplication of the time he had kissed her.

He could swear she was trying to kill him.

Then, with a final, questioning glance, she rose to her toes and touched her lips to his. Just that soft, hesitant kiss undid him. His arm wrapped about her waist and crushed her against him; he cupped her cheek, pulling his mouth from hers for only an instant to fix the slightly awkward angle she'd chosen. He tried to be gentle, to be tender with her, but could not hold that fragility for more than moments before fierceness and passion took over instead.

She returned his kiss, a little shyly and with utter inexperience – but she loved, she _wanted_ , just as he did. A half-strangled murmur sounded from deep within her throat, as her eyes slid closed and her hands tangled in his hair.

Her lips parted beneath his –

\- without warning, the spirit-eater burst free, its dark, hungry presence transforming idyll to nightmare. It reached for him, and there was nowhere to run, and although he began desperately calling an elemental, he knew he would not have time to finish the spell.

"...never..." Tarva forced through clenched teeth, fighting to regain her control over the curse. Slowly she compelled it away from Gann, and for an instant, it seemed as though she would be able to suppress it once more.

Then it turned and tore into her, ravaging memories and spirit.

There was nothing he could do in those endless seconds (longer than that first time, surely?) the Hunger fed. When it finally let her go, Gann was ready and caught her, pulling her safely down to the floor. Limp and boneless as she was, he could not prop her against his shoulder and dared not hold her in his arms; he settled for resting her head on his thigh and waiting, sick and guilty, for her to wake.

"Gann..." her voice was thready and weak when her eyelids fluttered open. "'m sorry. Lost – lost control." He shook his head, mutely. "No," she murmured, in what was doubtless intended to be a firm tone, but was softened by fatigue and pain. "Not your fault. I just... forgot, for a moment. I wish –"

"I know," Gann answered. "Tarva, I should have –"

"Not your fault," the half-elf repeated. "Just need to be... be careful. I won't risk you again." Her eyelids were drooping closed again. Unable to resist the temptation, hoping it came under the heading of 'careful', Gann skimmed his fingers through her soft, dark hair. She sighed in response. "It never gets any easier, does it? I'm so tired. So very tired."

"Then rest," he murmured. "There is some of the night left, and I will watch."

"Not that sort of tired," Tarva protested, and moments later, proved herself a liar.


	59. Ammon Jerro

The quiet hours slipped past, the world turning beneath them from darkness to light. Gann looked down at the woman who was using his leg for a pillow and felt himself smile even as he thought, for perhaps the eighteenth time that hour, of how the spirit-eater had roused and attacked. How could one night hold both such horror and such bewildering joy?

Tarva stirred, her dreams unravelling and dissipating. Her eyelids lifted, revealing eyes dark and blurred with sleep. Gann couldn't help it. "You are beautiful," he breathed, curling a lock of blue-black hair around his finger.

"And you are blind," Tarva said, apparently unwilling to relinquish her spot on the floor, looking up at him. "You're the one with the rugged good looks. I just have the 'rugged' part."

Gann pretended to consider this for a moment. "Well, perhaps you have a point."

"I always do." She sighed, her eyes closing again. "It's past dawn, isn't it? I suppose... I should go. Wake the others, get the armour on... Big day today, you know."

Why? – Oh, the devils. "I had honestly forgotten," Gann admitted, as Tarva sat up and turned to face him. He'd seen an echo of her tender expression once before, at the Lake of Dreams. Then, it had been furtive and vanishing swiftly; now it was open and acknowledged, and it stole his breath.

"Whatever happens, Gann –"

"Hush," he murmured, and threaded a hand in her hair, drawing her closer. "None of that." He suppressed a grimace – full circulation was slowly being restored to his calf and foot, and it was horribly uncomfortable. It didn't matter. Her lips were soft and hesitant on his.

Just one, long, perfect moment, before they broke away from each other. "For the record," Tarva murmured, a spark of mischief flashing in her eyes, "I now understand exactly why you were so scathing about Bishop's... technique." She put her hand on his shoulder for leverage and balance as she got to her feet.

"I should hope you do," Gann answered, and shook his head when she held out her hand to help him up. "I think I shall stay here a while. At least until I am certain my legs will hold me."

Tarva nodded, and probably would have said more, save that at that moment Okku poked his ridiculous rainbow head out into the corridor. He sniffed once, snorted, and turned knowing eyes on Gann. "I see..."

Tarva ruffled the thick fur between the bear's ears, wished him good morning, and disappeared into Safiya's room with only one backward glance.

Okku was staring at him _very_ hard. "Well, hagspawn -"

"Extremely well, King Bear," Gann interrupted cheerfully, and risked wiggling a toe. Oh no, he wasn't moving yet.

"That must have been an impressive courtship display. Yesterday you scared her so badly she threw herself into battle with _me_. Today she takes you as mate."

"My fabled charm," Gann suggested.

"Don't jest with me, shaman. Or with her. The Dreamer's Heart is not my gift to give, but I know it when I see it."

"The Dreamer's Heart?" Gann asked. He thought he'd known all there was to know of dreamwalking, and the spirit-gifts that strengthened that talent, but he'd never heard that term before. All the same, he knew beyond doubt what it referred to; he was still unused (suspected he always would be, and glad of it) to feeling the warmth of her love within him.

"If it is more information you seek, you had best ask another," Okku rumbled. "It is not like the Voice or the Eye, nor granted by the spirits, and that is all I can tell you." The bear-god closed his eyes for a moment. "I am not a guardian spirit, and I do not advise you... but you know your duties. You must provide meat and a safe den for your mate and your cubs."

"Cubs?" Safiya appeared suddenly and beat him to it. "Who's having cubs? Have you left some poor she-bear pining for you in Rashemen, Okku?"

"Not I, Safiya. I was speaking of the hagspawn."

In other circumstances, perhaps Gann would have been annoyed. But he knew how difficult it was to keep a secret in a group so small – besides, he could have shouted to all the world that Tarva loved him – and the way Okku had immediately jumped to conclusions was more amusing than anything else.

Safiya studied him carefully, a small smile on her lips. Then she shook her head. "Old Bear, under no circumstances short of a Rashemi horror-tale would it be possible for Gann to have cubs."

"You know what I meant," Okku sniffed.

"Well, yes, but not only are you a little ahead of affairs, it's still unlikely. Lubbock's research on hagspawn fertility was fairly conclusive."

It was also well-known in Rashemen. There was no such thing as a quarter-hag, or half-hagspawn. And if their half-blood men had been able to sire children, the hags would not have been such a threat to human males. It had never bothered him before. He refused to let it concern him now.

"We've corroborating evidence, too," Safiya continued. "If Lubbock were wrong, I suspect Rashemen would be knee-deep in little blue Gannlings."

"Now, _that's_ a strange mental image," Tarva said, peering over Safiya's shoulder with some difficulty, clad in armour. She smiled, just slightly, when she saw him – her face was no longer the impassive mask he'd known so well, but still it did not shout her emotions as others' did. "Still lazing about, Gann?"

"Tarva. I have the spell," Kaelyn said quietly as she joined them. "I'll follow your plan."

Tarva ran over it again – in painstaking detail – as Gann donned his armour. "Remember, I'll do the talking. Okku will block the doorway and keep the devils off you spellcasters as long as he can if everything goes wrong." When she was satisfied that they were as prepared as they could be, she took a deep breath. "Right, then. Let's go bully some baatezu."

Thael-ka greeted them with an extremely toothy grin. "You took your time, mortal. I was starting to get lonely."

"With only this miniscule moron to talk to, I was so bored, I was just thinking about eating Ammon Jerro's soul. I suppose you still want it?"

"And yet, I do not sense any additional souls about you..."

"I have a counter-offer," Tarva said.

"I don't believe we're interested in those."

"Oh, you will be." The weapon master took one step closer to the devils. "Let's talk about the Blood War."

"We are but humble merchants," Oronock said. Gann could have sworn that the devils had tensed slightly when she'd dropped those last two words.

"We've little to do with the grandeur of the Blood War," the other baatezu added.

"Come now," Tarva retorted, appearing entirely at her ease, "it's in your blood - hence the name. You don't really have a choice in the matter. And that's why you're going to give me the soul of Ammon Jerro and Nefris's marked soul."

"A very thin chain of logic, mortal."

"Don't dignify those assertions with the name of logic, Oronock. I can recognise coherent causality when I hear it. That was not an example."

Tarva took a breath. This, Gann knew, was the point where it might all fall to pieces. "That would be because I left out the step where I have three spellcasters behind me – and the bear-god – each of whom is capable of summoning a balor."

There was a noticeable silence before Thael-ka said, "A large claim for such a small, fragile creature."

"Yes," Tarva admitted. "But I see I have your attention. So, you give me the souls, or else I'll use the Blood War against you. A balor against a pit fiend is a very even match. _Three_ balors? When you're held in those circles? You wouldn't have a chance, and you know it."

Somehow, the devils did not look quite as large as they had before.

Tarva continued, "You may be thinking that a spell is only as strong as its caster, and that is correct. But Okku and I can hold you long enough that at least one of them will complete the casting, and the moment a balor appears on the scene, you'll have to attack it. You won't have a choice. There are two here who can call the others back from the dead – and then there's three balors again, and you've lost. So it's very simple. Give me what I want, or be destroyed."

The baatezu exchanged glances. "You would go far in our realm, you know. If you like, I could put something in writing to arrange it.

"If you can, indeed, do as you say. You might be bluffing." Oronock inspected his talons. "You seem to like counter-offers. Here's ours."

"We'll give you your souls. But we want the balors." Thael-ka bared his fangs. "Let us tear them apart – one at a time."

Tarva studied them a moment. "Is that a binding contract?"

"On our True Names." The pit fiend looked down at her. "But be forewarned - you have bought possession of the souls, not their redemption."

"Jerro's is a marked soul," Oronock elaborated. "When he dies, it will go where it has long been destined, and the hells will celebrate."

The weapon master hesitated only a moment. "We have a deal. Safiya, would you oblige these gentlemen?"

Safiya did, and they beat a somewhat hurried retreat as the tanar'ri charged the baatezu. Unfortunately, out into the corridor was not quite far enough away to dull the roars and the wet, hideous sounds of tearing flesh.

"Well," Tarva said, leaning against a convenient wall. "That went even better than I'd hoped."

"Unless there is something you have overlooked," the Dove cautioned. "Devils are not to be trusted."

"I know," the half-elf said. "But I think – "

"Another!" the cry came from within the room, loud and savage.

"I suppose that's our cue. Who's next – Gann or Kaelyn?" Tarva cast a warm glance at him, and he volunteered before the cleric could even open her mouth. Outwardly, nothing much had changed between them – at least, when the others were around. She was a little easier with him, a little more open. But inwardly... everything was different.

"You slept very soundly last night," Gann observed.

"It surprised me, too." Tarva shrugged, one corner of her mouth curling upward. "I suppose I was comfortable."

"You do seem... comfortable. Somehow, I hadn't expected – not that I'd expected anything– "

"Gann." She looked up at him, with eyes that could stop his heart. "I realised a while ago that I wasn't reacting or thinking quite... rationally where you were concerned. It bothered me, and I hated that I couldn't see why it bothered me. Now it's all clear." Her fingers brushed the back of his hand. "And it shocked me - still does, a little – but it feels... good. Right." She shook her head slightly. "I also dreamed last night that I had a blazing row with my father. About you. I know he wasn't exactly real... all the same, I talked him around eventually."

"My beloved-" he said, and felt, more than saw, her smile.

They were rudely interrupted.

"You took your time," Thael-ka snarled.

Gann looked up at the pit fiends, somewhat taken aback. They had never been particularly attractive; that would be difficult when you were twelve-foot, winged, leathery, fanged and taloned manifestations of malice and evil, but he could have sworn they had not appeared so entirely bestial before. Perhaps the tanar'ri blood dripping from their claws had something to do with it. It could have been the splintered bones under their feet. Gann wasn't too interested in pinning down exactly where the change had come from.

"Cast and get the Hells out," Oronock growled.

Yes. That was definitely a good idea. Gann dismissed the gruesome sights, and concentrated on the steps Safiya had so patiently drummed into his skull. She was a good teacher – the thought flashed through his mind as he raised his hands. The strange gestures and difficult syllables flowed easily as he shaped the magic, summoning and binding the balor demon. It had barely manifested onto the Prime before it was attacked.

Tarva and he practically ran for it.

"Everything all right in there?" Safiya asked.

"Decidedly messy," Tarva answered. "If you Red Wizards ever get around to cleaning this place up, you'll have a nasty job on your hands with that room."

Safiya shrugged. "The Disintegrate spell works equally well on dead bodies as live ones. Dust is easy to deal with."

"Clearly I haven't dragged you through nearly enough orc-infested caves," Tarva muttered. "Kaelyn, let's go before they start yelling for us."

"Mortal!"

"Too late." Tarva and Kaelyn left.

Safiya was looking at him, a faint smile on her lips. "I heard some of that, you know. You and her. I take it everything's settled?"

Okku grunted, his head resting on his paws. "They are bound by the Dreamer's Heart. Of course it is." His luminous eyes peered intently at Gann. "I do not understand why she would choose a chattering rook for a mate – but females will do as they please."

"How very enlightened of you, Old Bear," Safiya murmured. She was, suddenly, very serious. "Gann, I don't – I'm not sure – Hells, I'm bad at this. Look, you remember what we were saying yesterday morning. You know her chances as well as I do. I'd even pray to the gods if I thought that would accomplish anything... but if you two get a happy ending out of this, it'll be because you've earned it yourselves. I suppose all I'm saying is, I hope you do."

"So do I," Gann said, then glanced over his shoulder at the sound of footsteps. Weapon master and cleric were returning, it seemed.

"I'll still Disintegrate you if I have to," Safiya added.

"I would not expect anything less of you."

Tarva was keeping a very careful distance from Kaelyn, who'd slung her mace in its holder and carried an orb in each hand. She held them out for inspection; Okku sniffed at them and then snorted, while Safiya and Gann just looked at them.

Both were shining orbs, as all the souls they'd encountered in the Academy had been. The first looked rather like the ones in the Repository, save for a red stain upon the smooth glass surface. In one moment, it appeared to be a complex sigil, then it writhed and became a splash of blood, and then the screaming face of a devil. Gann decided that it hurt his eyes and inspected the other instead.

It should have looked the same – round, glowing, scarlet mark – but he would never have mistaken the two. It looked... neither grimy nor gritty was the right word, but Gann was certain that even though the soul was encased in the glass, it would not be pleasant to touch. It shone, oh yes, but with a milky grey light that seemed to cast far too many shadows.

"Ammon Jerro," Tarva said softly. "Let's return it to him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The phrase 'little blue Gannlings' just popped into my head and demanded to be said by Safiya. I shudder to think what might happen if she ever saw Smurfs.


	60. Again Ammon Jerro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although you might not guess it, and I'm probably not doing him justice, I am actually quite fond of Ammon Jerro.

"I'll handle this part," Safiya announced, and took the soul of Ammon Jerro from Kaelyn.

"It requires your expertise?" Kaelyn murmured as she stepped back from the cot on which the warlock's body lay. The chest-band of his brown robe, studded with rough, glowing turquoise crystals, rose and fell almost imperceptibly with his breath.

"No more than replacing Bebtu's did," the Red Wizard answered. "Souls are not parted easily from their proper bodies, and rejoining them is rarely difficult. But just in case..." Safiya absently handed her staff to Kaji, who wrapped his misshapen hands around it and fluttered violently in the attempt to keep it upright. Kaelyn took pity on the homunculus and grabbed the staff an instant before it would have fallen and cracked Ammon Jerro across the nose.

Ignoring the by-play, Safiya's hands were steady as she brought the globe down. It shivered, almost as the Imaskari device had when brought into contact with fresh blood, but instead of blood being sucked in, the murky light within the globe slowly dimmed.

Then the glass sphere was empty, and Ammon Jerro's breathing was no longer faint, but hoarse and rasping. "Give him a moment," Safiya said, straightening up and reclaiming her staff from the Dove. "I'm told that being soulless is disconcerting."

"Perhaps you'd all best get back," Tarva said – the words were a suggestion, the tone was an order. "Ammon Jerro tends to jump to conclusions, and the results can be lethal."

Well, that sounded like a most attractive trait. Gann followed the women and the bear around the corner, where Bebtu was still lying and recovering his strength. He stuck his head around the wall, though, and watched. Tarva slanted a glance over her shoulder; she always did seem to know what he was up to.

Ammon stirred, and she turned her attention to him. The man's eyes flickered open, and the tattooed lines on his forehead glowed brighter. "I am... still alive, yes?"

"Yes," the half-elf told him, and shook her head as Ammon tried to sit up. "Don't strain yourself. We've only just re-introduced your soul."

Either Ammon didn't hear, or he ignored her. Shaking with the effort, the warlock pushed himself upright. "And you survive," he rasped. "I suppose I should be relieved." He scowled at her, looking far more resentful than relieved – then his head turned, he glared at Gann, and light sparked about his clenched fist. "We are not alone. Are they dangerous?"

"Not to you. Did you think I could venture into the heart of Thay by myself?" Tarva assessed Ammon's state and was apparently resigned to what she saw. "We've a safe – well, safer – place nearby." Ammon nodded curtly, and staggered only slightly when he stood. Tarva, Gann noticed, didn't offer to help him.

"I hope your allies are as useful as they are eccentric," the warlock croaked as they trailed through the halls.

"More than allies," Tarva said, and Gann couldn't, off-hand, recall the last time her tone had been so entirely frosty. "Friends."

Ammon's eyes narrowed. "You never did understand the dangers, how emotion warps your priorities. I don't need to remind you of what happened to the last group of incompetents and traitors you called friends."

Gann blinked. Surely this man, who'd been there... surely he knew Tarva better than that? Why would he say such things?

Safiya was frowning, too. Then she looked at Gann, and grinned as she raised her voice. "Does he realise we can hear him – or do you think he's as deaf as he is rude?"

Tarva, it seemed, didn't need Safiya's small defence. "Ammon. I know where your scars are. Stop prodding at mine." They passed, finally, into Safiya's room, where Kaelyn poured healing and strength into Ammon Jerro, Okku put his head down on his paws, Safiya perched on the end of her bed, and Gann found a convenient wall to lean against. Tarva hesitated. She glanced at Okku, her usual backrest, and crossed the room to Gann's side. Her hand brushed against his; their fingers entwined.

"Enough," Ammon said. Gann had all but forgotten about him. "I doubt that you journeyed into a Red Wizard Academy on my account."

"Introductions first," Tarva said, and gestured with her free hand. "The cleric is Kaelyn the Dove, formerly one of Kelemvor's doomguides and now sworn to serve Ilmater."

Ammon regarded the priestess for a long moment, then nodded. His eyes, fierce and yellow as a cat's, alighted on Safiya. "You look... familiar."

"My mother is – _was -_ Headmistress here, and I resemble her strongly," the Red Wizard said, her voice rather tart. She was not inclined to be kind to the warlock, apparently. "I was an instructor here in my own right, and my name is Safiya."

"The bear-god Okku, to whom all spirits in Rashemen owe allegiance," Tarva continued, surprising the warlock. Okku cast a sardonic glance up at Ammon. Ah, so Old Father Bear had not been too fond of the way Ammon had spoken to Tarva, either.

"And this is Gann, a shaman and a dreamwalker."

"And considerably more than a friend, I take it," Ammon observed, eyeing their joined hands.

"Yes," Tarva said simply. "I love him." Even amidst the stab of exultation he felt at hearing her claim him so openly, Gann still noted Kaelyn's mild, quizzical gaze and Safiya's slight smile. Then the half-elf sighed, and was once more all business. "And I should perhaps re-introduce myself. I'm not the Kalach-cha any more. A Red Wizard, probably Safiya's mother, removed the shard and dumped me in Okku's barrow, where... where I became a spirit-eater."

Something a good deal more vulnerable than the scowl he'd been wearing flashed across the warlock's face, leaving him looking suddenly a great deal more human. "I feared something of the kind... a plot was set in motion, and my failure has brought doom upon you."

"You were not so defeatist when you faced the King of Shadows," Tarva said sharply. "I refuse to be doomed."

"Indeed," Gann echoed. "There will be no doom here."

Ammon studied them for a long moment, his hooded eyes unreadable. "Your stubbornness always served you well. What, then, would you have of me?"

Tarva tugged at her hair. "Ammon, I can't... I can't remember anything after destroying the King of Shadows. What happened? To you, to me, to everyone else?"

"That does not surprise me greatly. The Sword of Gith has a –" Ammon paused, deliberating his next words, "- _curious_ bond with its wielder. When it strikes down a foe, it... it sings back through you." Ah, yes, Gann remembered now. It was when Ammon had raised it against the King of Shadows that the sword had shattered and a shard of it had embedded itself in Tarva's chest.

The warlock was still speaking "... not the expert the gith would claim she was, but the circumstances under which you reforged the blade were exceptional. You, the Sword, and the King of Shadows were far more tightly linked than usual – the feedback when you killed him would have been overwhelming."

"That part I remember," Tarva said.

"When the King of Shadows fell, everything around us was flung into chaos," Ammon recounted, dispassionate as though it was only a story. "There was limited time to observe as the fortress crumbled around us, but all those who stood with us – the mage, the gith, the dwarf, the gnome and that golem of his – survived the battle. In addition, the gith somehow found time to raise the tiefling girl."

"Neeshka?" Tarva's mouth stretched into an incredulous, joyful smile. "Neeshka _lives_?"

The warlock nodded. "I do not know if it was that lucky coin of hers, or perhaps attention from... certain interested parties below, but she leaped over every crevice and avoided every falling rock. When I last saw her, she was just an outline against the daylight, closely followed by the dwarf."

"Khelgar's safe, too? The gargoyles said he chased me..."

"He did," Ammon said, "but they correctly assessed his intelligence and he lost them. Then he turned for the surface."

Kaelyn dug in her pack and pulled out some food - the rather dry bread and even drier meat they'd been travelling on – and passed them to the warlock along with her waterskin. Judging from the speed he wolfed them down, he could go through all their supplies and hardly sate his hunger. His next sentence was surprisingly clear for the amount of bread in his mouth. "Of the githzerai I know nothing, but I did not see her body."

"It would not have been difficult for her to return to her home plane," Kaelyn interjected softly. "I could do so myself, even under such circumstances, if I... if I were permitted." Tarva nodded in acknowledgement, and Ammon stared at the Dove a moment.

"Grobnar?" the weapon master asked.

The scowl was firmly re-established on Ammon's face. "For some inexplicable reason, the gnome threw himself across his golem when a pillar fell atop both of them. I did not have long to look, but neither of them were moving."

"Oh, Grobnar," Tarva breathed. "You poor idiot." She shifted closer to Gann. Never one to miss a cue, he put his arm around her shoulder and held her tightly as she took a couple of shaky breaths. She was herself again almost instantly – not that Gann let her go. "And Sand?"

Ammon shrugged, and put the waterskin down. "The mage's gift for transmutation may have saved him. As the roof caved in, I heard him chanting one of his favoured spells. I am fairly certain he finished before the worst of the rubble fell. If he chose his form carefully - an iron golem, say - there is a good chance he lives."

A moment of utter silence, then Tarva sighed. "And you? You chased the gargoyles through the Shadow Plane-"

"- and on the other side, I was ambushed by the headmistress of this infernal place." Safiya's eyes narrowed at that, but she didn't say anything. "She remembered me from a time when I'd studied here –"

"Ah, that explains your tattoos," Safiya said, intellectual curiosity triumphing, as always, over half-formed resentment. There _was_ a resemblance between the markings that adorned her scalp and those on the warlock's. "I haven't seen that effect before, though. What did you use for ink?"

"Lantern archon," Ammon answered, and laughed, a deep, chilling sound, at the absolute horror on Kaelyn's face.

"That is _evil_ -"

"Yes, Kaelyn," Tarva cut off the half-celestial's outrage that someone would abuse a celestial creature in such a fashion. "Remember, I told you the kind of person Ammon Jerro is."

The warlock inclined his head. "You would do well to remember it, cleric."

"Nefris caught you," Tarva prompted the warlock now, leaning as much against Gann as against the wall. "She removed your soul, and gave it to a pair of pit fiends for safe-keeping."

"That I had not known." Ammon scratched at his heavy red beard. "It seems I may owe you a debt. What price did you pay to reclaim it?"

"No debt," Tarva shook her head. "They asked for gold, and the souls of three students, which I refused to pay." A corner of her mouth quirked upward. "You would have been _so_ proud of me... Safiya deciphered some of Nefris's research, and she, Kaelyn and Gann are all capable of summoning a balor."

That laugh, more menacing than it should have been, oozed from the warlock again. "You threatened them."

"And successfully," Tarva said. "I didn't anticipate that they'd then want us to summon the tanar'ri one at a time for them to kill, but it still worked."

"Then you were fortunate," Ammon conceded, and said no more.

Tarva ducked away from Gann, casting a brief look of apology over her shoulder as she crossed to her pack. Kaelyn watched the warlock, bristling, wary as - well, there was no good comparison, but images of rival wolf-packs, of mice and cats, of swooping hawks flickered across the hagspawn's memory, and her wings were glowing slightly. Ammon was aware of her scrutiny and found it amusing, if the set of his jaw meant anything.

Tarva fished out the amulet she'd worn before Okku's claw. Light sparked from the sky-blue stone, catching Ammon's attention. All at once his face softened, as Gann would not have believed possible a moment before: he was suddenly devoid of all menace and malice. He was just a man, lonely and far too old.

He murmured a word.

"Yes," Tarva said gently. "Yes, this was Shandra's." She held the pendant out to him; he took it hesitantly, bowing his head as his thumb brushed over the stone. "You remember how I came to have it. I think it's time I returned it." The warlock clutched the amulet as though it was a treasure beyond price. Tarva's voice was very soft as she asked, "Ammon... why did you follow me?"

He didn't look up. "Your level of... notoriety inevitably draws dangerous beings to your doorstep. For all I knew, you'd made a new enemy – something you do effortlessly – one who intended to finish what the King of Shadows had started. That sword nearly destroyed you..."

That was not quite the picture he had given before. The memento of the granddaughter he had murdered had lowered his defences – Gann wondered fleetingly whether Tarva had known it would provoke that reaction.

"I was not... anxious to see such a fate befall a worthy ally."

Those last two words... ah, that was what floated between Tarva and the warlock. They were so very different; she hated all that he'd done without apology or regret, and he was no more kindly disposed towards her – but they shared an abiding and ungrudging respect for each other.

"Thank you," Tarva said quietly. "What will you do now?"

"I do not know," Ammon admitted, finally looking up from the pendant. "The King of Shadows is vanquished. For so many years, that was all I sought. Now that goal is achieved... I have nothing left."

"Nothing?"

Ammon scoffed at Tarva's question. "A body that is old and failing, a fraction of the power I used to channel, a soul that is already forfeit."

"That's enough, Ammon," the half-elf said, her eyes curiously intent.

"For what?"

"To seek redemption." The warlock regarded her with a flat, weary expression, which didn't seem to bother Tarva at all. "Your choice," she said, and left it at that.

"We could always do with more aid," Safiya offered into the silence, words directed at nobody in particular.

"No," Kaelyn said, her constant serenity failing to mask the steel beneath. "Not his."

"What say you?" The warlock hadn't taken his eyes from Tarva – nor had he blinked. He knew, Gann thought, exactly who led their merry little band. "Together we once achieved a goal none thought possible, and I do not deny that without you I might have failed to eliminate the threat from the Mere of Dead Men. If you would consider what little help I could offer fair payment..."

Tarva looked back at Ammon, level and impassive. "That debt is hardly one-sided. I needed you, you needed me – it's done. This is another matter. I am a spirit-eater. Unless we can find a cure, the curse will consume me, then seek another host. While I carry it, I am a threat to every spirit, every soul I encounter – even yours," she added, with a flicker of black humour. "Why do you seek to travel with such a one?"

In this much, the red-bearded man was utterly sincere. "To save the life of one to whom I owe much."

Tarva nodded, accepting this, then gazed around the room, her glance resting on each of her friends in turn. "Safiya, I know your opinion – Kaelyn, yours too. Okku?"

King Bear grunted, indicating his complete indifference. Alternatively, he might have fallen asleep again.

"Gann?"

The hagspawn inclined his head. Anything to increase her chances of survival.

"This Academy is not a safe place for one person," Tarva said, returning to Gann's side. "Come with us – at least until we're clear. After that... well, we'll discuss it when we come to it."

He laughed again. "You have not lost your touch for compromise, I see."

Kaelyn was almost glaring at Tarva, mitigated by her attempt to glare at Ammon Jerro at the same time, and by the fact that hers was not a face made for such an expression anyway. "Oh, gods," Tarva murmured, just loud enough for Gann to overhear. "This might be a mistake. I'm pushing her too far."

"Just because she doesn't like him?" he responded at the same careful pitch.

"I'll explain later," she breathed, and then raised her voice. "Ammon, how are you feeling? Can you hold up in a fight?"

"Don't patronise me," the warlock rasped.

"Right. Shall we take that soul up to Nefris's door, and see just what she was hiding?"

"If it will stop this endless chatter," Okku said, heaving himself to his feet. "And perhaps we shall go hunting more Red Wizards? You seem to have no great love for their breed, old fox."

Ammon Jerro cast a rather jaundiced eye at the bear over his new epithet.

Gann thought it suited him.


	61. Again Djafi

So, after all his protests, Okku had to climb the stairs. The long, windy, narrow, dark stairs, which were difficult enough to negotiate without having to push a heavy and ungrateful bear up them. Old Father Bear had attempted to argue that they didn't really need him to open a door – which, Gann supposed, was fair enough – but, as Safiya said, they had no idea what was on the other side of that door, and hadn't he sworn an oath to protect Tarva?

He was still comparing Safiya to all sorts of uncomplimentary things when he finally got all four paws flat on the floor of Nefris's tower. Only Tarva scratching a particularly itchy spot behind his ear shut the bear up, allowing Safiya to stop frowning over the marked soul and fix her almond-shaped eyes on the locked door, with its three embedded souls. "I can't shake the feeling," she said, "that something bad's going to happen when we open this."

"The chances are good," Tarva agreed. "But what sort of bad? And from what direction?"

"Cover them all," Ammon Jerro rasped, and pointed. "You, there. The bear, there. Cleric, shaman, wizard, me." After a little bit of scrambling around, Kaelyn and Okku positioned themselves at the door, with Safiya and Gann standing between them and Tarva and Ammon (Gann didn't think warlocks, especially with freshly reintegrated souls, made for good front-line fighters, but wasn't inclined to argue).

Kaelyn slid the marked soul into the empty socket.

The door flared with scarlet runes, blinding him for a moment. When his vision cleared, he barely noticed the unlocked door. There were other things on his mind – well, only one, really. They were surrounded by Red Wizards.

Their leader was - "Araman! I owe you the wages of your treachery..." Safiya snarled, her fingers moving swiftly in the shaping of a spell.

"Not like this," one of the wizards, behind the others, protested. His voice sounded faintly familiar. "Please, she doesn't deserve this-"

"Araman," Tarva greeted the man calmly, as a floating sword took shape in the air near Safiya, and Okku and Kaelyn sidled out from behind the others to join Tarva, since there didn't seem to be any threat coming from behind the door.

"Do you _know_ my face?" Araman was intent on the weapon master, ignoring Safiya entirely. "My smiles have faded, and my laughter is silenced forever; your face has changed so many times... but _something_ of you must be left inside that hollow shell. Do you remember me at all, brother?"

"Brother?" Tarva shook her head. "What is it with you people and thinking me a man?"

"Indeed..." another Red Wizard said. "Araman, what lunacy is this? The door is finally open, we have done all that you asked. I see no reason to play yet more games with-"

"Turn away," Araman begged Tarva, his voice cracking with emotion. "Cast your eyes back to Rashemen... to our home. _Leave_ – leave this place now, and none will hinder you. Beyond that door lies little truth, and great folly. A folly that will sunder the plains, and render meaningless all that you have suffered."

"Walk away?" the half-elf's voice was incredulous. "Waste all the struggle that has brought us to this point, the sacrifices my friends have made, and just let this hunger consume me?"

"You _are_ the Hunger. The rest is a garment, to be worn and cast away, as you have so often before." Araman sighed. "I never could turn you from your chosen path. If you are truly intent on this, I cannot protect you any longer. My fight is not with you."

And the Red Wizard turned his back on them.

"Araman, you worthless gobbet of diseased troll sputum! Come back here!" Neither Safiya's cry nor the spell she shot at him stopped Araman from simply teleporting away.

"Mad," said the Red Wizard who'd commented on Araman's lunacy before. "Madder than Nefris ever was. Come on, Djafi, let's make an end to this."

"Master... Master Djafi?" Safiya's head came up, searching for one face she hadn't expected to see. "What are you doing – oh. I had wondered how you survived Araman's purge."

"Safiya, please," the old man said quietly, as though he wasn't sure what he was asking of her.

"You stood by when they murdered my mother," Safiya said, a tired, flat little statement. "You let them do it. I should have known."

"Survival... has become a habit," Djafi admitted.

"I tire of this," an instructress said, and suddenly they were in battle. Tarva charged, Okku beside her, nearly outpaced by Safiya's magic as she attempted to strip away the Red Wizards' magical protections. A huge Earth Elemental answered Gann's call and lumbered toward the cluster of opponents, just as a fierce wave of flame blossomed out from the centre of them.

Djafi stood, unharmed, in the midst of the fire. "Safiya, dear," he called, somehow audible over the sound of chanting – well, there was less and less of that, as Kaelyn systematically Silenced the wizards – "forgive me."

"Save it for later!" Tarva shouted. "Fight now!" and followed her own advice by striking down the instructress, dying the red robe a deeper shade of scarlet. Another exploded in bloody chunks, to the sound of Ammon Jerro's dark laughter. Okku raised himself to his hind legs, roaring as his massive paw raked out, pulling the face off his enemy.

The advantage seemed to be with them, but the Red Wizards were far from helpless as they got their spells off, nearly in unison. A giant hand seized Okku; even over the bear's roars, Gann could hear bones snap as it squeezed him, and called forth a healing spell in response. A shadowy doppelganger of Tarva appeared in front of Safiya and attacked her; while Safiya dodged the scythe-blow, she lost the spell she'd been casting. Ammon Jerro drew a falchion and engaged the simulacrum. Its greater reach was a serious problem –he couldn't get anywhere near it, and he could barely hold it off Safiya. "Banish it!" he snarled at her, as Kaelyn sealed up the gash Tarva's copy had carved in his shoulder.

"Working on it!" Safiya spat back.

Tarva had placed herself in front of Master Djafi and was defending him against an iron golem - the shapechanged form of one of his colleagues who had taken offence to his defection. "Somebody help Okku!"

Kaelyn charged the Wizard who'd cast the spell. The first swing of her mace shattered the man's arm; the second, rather more powerful, took off his head. Golden light engulfed the bear-god, and he turned to fell the last remaining Red Wizard who wasn't currently an eight-foot engine of destruction. He died just as Safiya got his simulacrum dispelled.

With all of them on him, even a golem could not hold out forever. When the iron body toppled, changing back to flesh even as it hit the floor, Safiya rushed to Master Djafi. "I knew it," she said, and this time she was smiling. "I knew you were still the same man who comforted a frightened girl, terrified of the voices in her mind, taught her to craft little chattering creatures of twigs and clay... _real_ voices to drown out the false."

"Safiya," Djafi said, and pulled her into a very awkward hug. It apparently wasn't something Red Wizards did, and Gann could hear Ammon Jerro scoffing behind him, but just for a moment, he could see that younger, more vulnerable Safiya.

Then she pulled free. "You and Master Poruset had better keep an eye on my Academy," she warned him. "I'll be back one of these days, and if you let the students get away with boiling sulphur in my workroom, I'll be very cross with both of you."

"Don't be too long. I'm an old man, Safiya dear."

"But all this –" Safiya gestured at the bodies of the Red Wizards – "had better be cleaned up by then. Get the first-years practicing their Disintegrates, and some golems with brooms. _Not_ broom-golems, no matter how hard they plead. Not one Apprentice in a thousand can handle them properly." She shook her head. "And now I'm rambling. You know all that. Sorry." Safiya took a deep breath. "Take care, Djafi."

"You too," the Red Wizard replied, and turned for the stairs.

The door stood ajar, finally unlocked. "Well," Gann said, "shall we?"

Tarva pulled it all the way open, revealing nothing more threatening or impressive than a corridor just wide enough for Okku to fit, an empty archway at its end.

"That's rather an anticlimax," Safiya said, and took a few steps in.

The archway flared to life at her approach. She stepped back, in hesitation or surprise; it died.

"It is linked to you," Kaelyn murmured.

"Mother's work, clearly," Safiya said, and approached the portal again. "But no gatekeeper golem. Let me have a look..." She ran her hands over the archway, ignoring the glowing portal. "Well, mother, that's maddeningly unhelpful." Safiya rubbed at her scalp tattoos as she turned back to them. "I don't know where it goes."

Tarva shrugged. "It's not as though we have another way forward at this point."

"It would be stupid to just –"

The weapon master brushed past Safiya and disappeared into the portal.

"-do that," the Red Wizard muttered, and rolled her eyes at Gann. "If that portal leads to somewhere horrible, I'm not taking responsibility."

"Noted," Gann said, and passed through himself.

Into a cold, endless space. A sunless sky streaked with blue seemed to wheel all about him, his eyes screaming that he was rushing forwards, or sideways, or plummeting, though he knew he was still. He was going to fall into that sky –

\- something old and grim was laughing at him -

There was blessed, familiar darkness, and the sensation of Tarva's hand clamped over his eyes. "Careful, Gann. You mustn't look up." She drew his face downwards and removed her hand; he was looking at the ground. The rough, ivory ground gleamed in the strange, silver-blue light. He took Tarva's hand and pressed it to his lips.

"Khelgar used to have the same reaction to heights," she murmured. "Well, except for the hand-kissing part."

"Ah, but that's the best part," Gann answered.

"I have dreamed of this place," Okku's voice came from behind him. Gann raised his eyes very slightly. Old Father Bear had cast his head up, and was sniffing the frigid air, unbothered by the unnatural sky.

"It is the Astral Plane," said a voice as serene as only Kaelyn's could be.

"Was it the sky that told you, or your special celestial senses?" Ammon Jerro's drawl dripped with black amusement.

"I always wondered what the Astral Plane was like," Safiya said. "I wonder why mother would – oh my. She did it. She actually did it."

They rounded a curving wall made of the same stuff they stood upon just as Tarva asked "She did what?", but her question went ignored when they almost stumbled into a quartet of Death Knights. They had faced their ilk before, in Myrkul's Vault; powerful undead and dangerous opponents indeed, and not ones they were ready to face immediately after senior Red Wizards and therefore short on spells. All the same, Tarva readied her scythe and Okku bared his teeth –

"Hold!" one of the Death Knights commanded, holding out his hand to show he was unarmed. "My lord hath commanded me to grant passage to an "old friend," one he hath seen in his dreams."

"That's Old Common!" Safiya muttered, with delight that Gann felt was rather inappropriate. "I've never heard it spoken before – it sounds much better than I thought."

"He was uncertain what appearance this person would take," the undead creature continued, "but he spoke of an appetite that could know no satiation."

"I don't know who your master might be," Tarva said, "but I think I may be who you're looking for. I am... I am a spirit-eater."

The Death Knight took a step closer, leaning over Tarva. She looked up at him, tense but unmoved, as he sniffed, deliberately, with a sound like tearing cloth. "Yes... yes, I thought I recognized thee. It has been many an age since we have crossed paths, thou and I. Proceed, then. Th'art expected... but know thou that only a pale shadow of my master remains, drifting here. Thou must needs approach his head and speak unto his ear, if thou wouldst a waking audience."

"Oh, my," Safiya murmured again, as the Death Knights shuffled to one side. "Gann, you really should look up. You need to see this."

"See what?"

"Myrkul," the Red Wizard breathed. "Mother found a way to speak to him. We're here. We're standing on his bones."


	62. Myrkul

They walked up the massive backbone, wider than the river that flowed into the Lake of Dreams, with the skeletal ribs curving out and up to a dizzying height – well, at least they did according to Tarva's description. Gann still wasn't going to look for himself; he contented himself with watching the solid bone pass beneath his boots, and listening to the characteristic observations of his friends and travelling companions.

Beside him was Tarva, guiding him and describing the strange surroundings. A little way behind, Safiya was enthusing and theorising at an unenthusiastic and practical Okku, who was grumbling under his breath about it. Ammon tossed the occasional gibe at Kaelyn, who tried to ignore it and usually ended up rising to it instead.

"I should probably put an end to that," Tarva muttered.

"I'm sure Kaelyn can take care of herself. If she can't, it is at least amusing."

"Gann," Tarva said, a faint note of reproof in her voice. "I told you, it's a bad idea to push Kaelyn too far. You don't understand how entirely committed to the Crusade she is. What it means to her... Well, how could you? Gann, _she betrayed her god_."

He heard the heavy emphasis, but didn't understand why it was there. "So?"

Tarva sighed. "Look. Kaelyn's of celestial blood, and she was a cleric of Kelemvor. Her dedication to him was bred in her bones and confirmed in her vows. She turned against him, against every tie of belief and vow and blood. Every instinct in her would have screamed against it – and she defied them all, for the sake of those souls suffering in the Wall of the Faithless.

"She lives every moment of every day, knowing that she betrayed her god, and for her, there is no deeper betrayal possible. She made that choice to bring down the Wall. Every other consideration is secondary to her now – she will not, cannot allow anything to stand in her way. She is _desperate,_ Gann. She has already, to her mind, committed the worst crime, the blackest sin she ever could, in pursuit of her goal. She will stop at nothing now. Make no mistake: if Kaelyn has to choose between us or the Crusade, she won't even hesitate."

Gann – very carefully – cast a glance over his shoulder at the black-eyed priestess with her serene, lovely face. "I know her dreams rule her, but you speak of her as something more... something dangerous to _us_."

"She is," Tarva said simply. "Remember it."

He would have to think about that.

Tarva stopped moving; Safiya and Okku caught up to them, closely followed by the Dove, and then the warlock. "I still can't believe this," Safiya said. "What I wouldn't give for –"

" **Ah... what is this?"** The voice echoed, weighted with the embers of an ancient presence. Slowly it turned the pressure of its focus on them – a force like the one they'd experienced at the Red Tree, when Tarva had invoked Chauntea – but this was unimaginably cold, malicious and evil. It wished death and suffering upon them all, for no reason more than its own amusement... and yet, it was entirely impersonal. It did not hate them for who or what they were, but simply because they were there.

Forgetting about the dangerous sky, Gann looked up. And further up. Far above them, harsh white light glared from the eye-sockets of Myrkul's skull. **"A dream, a fantasy, a recollection, spawned of my own dead mind... Yes, I _know_ you, spirit-eater. And you have brought others. Other castoffs, other discarded souls and products of shattered laws... This priestess, for example." ** Kaelyn pushed past Safiya and Okku to stand more directly before the _god_ (what else could he call it?), her eyes narrowed and her attitude defiant. **"Tinged with Kelemvor's blind philosophy, salted with the wretched tears of Ilmater's pity... or has the Crying God forsaken you as you forsook Kelemvor?"**

"Ilmater forsakes no one, Myrkul," the Dove replied, her wings snapping out to their full span. "Not even those who commit such atrocities as building the Wall of the Faithless."

The dead god laughed, a sound like the rattle of dry bones. **"Ilmater knows only pity... but Kelemvor, pragmatic, cold Kelemvor, smelled the death of faith upon you, and severed you like a gangrenous limb when you discovered the truth of your calling... "Doomguide" – an apt name, is it not? Why would you heal their pain, when the true agony is yet to come, the agony of my Wall?"**

"It is only a structure," Kaelyn said. Her voice was no louder, no more expressive than usual, but it rang like a bell with her determination. "It will not survive time and faith. It will not survive _me._ "

" **You would have an easier time dismantling Mount Celestia stone by stone. But perhaps you will assemble an army to help you... you will lead the living to their death for the sake of those already lost. You will sacrifice those who follow you blindly to _no_ purpose."**

"You're not going to interfere here?" Gann murmured to Tarva, barely audible as Myrkul continued his attack on Kaelyn. "He's-"

"-goading her, questioning her, yes. As I tried to, but she isn't walking away. Not from him."

"There isn't anywhere to go."

"Not the point."

"- my Grandfather shared no words with Kelemvor concerning me!" Kaelyn cried out. "You lie!"

" **Oh, there you are mistaken. He apologised to his god, apologised for your 'narrow-mindedness', described you as a rogue grandchild who had not yet learned the _rules_ . Your own blood _condemned_ you."** The light in those massive eyes flared brighter as the massive jaw dropped in a gaping grin. **"He cast you out of his halls, sealed the doors of your home to you – never again will you walk on the slopes of Mount Celestia, hear the chorus in the House of the Triad. You are an angel left to walk the earth, with only her burning need for justice to keep her warm. A fairy tale with a bright beginning and a _fiery_ end, I think. " ** The hollow, heavy voice paused only a moment, before adding slyly, **"But isn't this how such falls always begin?"**

"She is not Fallen," Tarva said, "for she has not despaired. Nor will she."

Kaelyn looked back at Tarva, and inclined her head. "The one I follow speaks in better words than I, but I share their strength."

" **Do you?"** Myrkul's laughter rattled out again. **"When you go before Kelemvor, little dove, ask him to dispense with ritual, with the agonies of the Wall. Listen to his answer. At _that_ moment, you will Fall. You will know that the Planes turn, and _justice_ does not drive them."**

A brief silence, and "Does it not?" Kaelyn answered, her wings shivering in a breeze Gann did not feel. "Once you were the lord or decay, of corruption... and now here you are, at the mercy of those forces. Is that not just?"

" **Perhaps what you see is not justice, but only amusement and irony... two things which I value more. But I tire of speaking with you. What other detritus clings to you, spirit-eater?"** The skull did not move, not even the glare of its eyes shifted, but all at once, the entire weight of that cold, grim regard rested on Gann. **"This one – _he_ is bound for my Wall. As the Coven said, no?"**

Well, Kaelyn had given a fairly good account of herself to the dead thing; he would be ashamed to do less. Besides, Tarva was still beside him, and he could face anything as long as she was there. "If the Wall remains there when death comes for me – and given our songbird's determination, I would be surprised if it did – I shall crack it from within."

" **Braver and stronger than you have tried, spawn of hags. The universe does not bend to your whims any more than it obeys your angel's justice."** The fleshless jaw dropped open again. **"But you still do not _believe_ in gods or faith, even as you look upon my corpse."**

"Your corpse does not speak well for the power of your kind," Gann said.

Myrkul was still intent on his own argument. **"I suppose to believe in ones such as me – to you, that is a death of a different sort... and no less painful than slowly rotting away within my Wall of the Faithless."**

Beside him, Tarva murmured his name; surprised, Gann looked down and saw her eyes dark and stormy. It took him a moment to identify the expression in their depths: the determination he knew, the sudden recognition, but there was something else... and then, he had it. "My love, what hurts you?"

The half-elf opened her mouth to say something, then abruptly reconsidered it. "I love you," she said instead, and it was not an answer.

Gann would have asked again – such evasion was uncharacteristic of her – but the hollow thunder of Myrkul's voice drowned out his words. **"Ah, the red woman... she has been here before. _All_ that she is now, she owes to me... and to you, spirit-eater."**

Safiya, too, was strong enough to stand up to the giant skeleton. "Your memory is fading faster than your name, old god, and you're wrong on both counts. First, I have never been to the Astral Plane before this moment. Second, I owe you _nothing._ "

" **But you stood before me just a short time ago, red woman, burning with rage and love in equal measure... What a shattered thing you have become. If your beloved had _accepted_ my judgement of you, your suffering might have ended long ago." **

The Red Wizard actually laughed at Myrkul. "You must have me confused with some other woman. My beloved? My _suffering_? A drunk Rashemi berserker could make better guesses than that."

" **You are as ignorant of your own nature as the one who leads you. The sight of you is wearisome, even to these dead eyes."**

"Do you intend to bait every last one of my friends?" Tarva asked.

" **The pallid little bear-spirit is of no concern,"** and behind Gann, Old Father Bear snarled at this description. **"The warlock... he would have interested me, once, but now his soul is a tattered thing, promised a dozen times over. No, spirit-eater, it is you I would speak with. Tell me what has brought you to this boneyard of gods."**

"I came seeking answers, Myrkul," Tarva answered. "The Slumbering Coven told Lienna and Nefris that you knew how to cure the spirit-eater curse."

Myrkul laughed, a mirthless sound like distant thunder. **"And on such second-hand rumours, you came to this charnel house. Did you really put more credence in the hags' dreams than in the words of the Wood Man? He told you there was no way to change your nature, spirit-eater."**

No. Gann had refused to believe it when the spirit of the Ashenwood had said it, and he didn't want to hear it _now._ They had been living with such a small, tentative hope for so long, and to hear Myrkul's cold voice snuffing it out... No. This cold, spiteful thing, this dead god, was nothing to trust. There was a way. There had to be.

"I am not just empty Hunger," Tarva declared, her voice soft, but clear. She reached for his hand, and took a deep breath. "I am Tarva El-Auri, the Knight-Captain of Crossroad Keep, the Kalach-Cha. I am Daeghun Farlong's daughter, and Gannayev's beloved. The curse cannot touch that."

" **Ah, spirit-eater. You are an irony that walks, two fates bound into one. It is true... I know little of the hero of Neverwinter. But the other... Akachi, the Betrayer... oh, he is _just_ as I left him. A ravening void, seeking to fill itself, to regain what he has lost."**

"What he lost, or what was torn from him?" Safiya interjected, suddenly beside Gann, her voice hard. It was not a question – it was an accusation. He blinked a little at her vehemence. Where had that come from? What did she care for Akachi?

The light flared brighter in the skull's sockets. **"My Wall hungers. _I_ placed him there – fitting punishment for my False priest – and I watched, as his mind, his thoughts, his memories slowly drained away. I left him only the emptiness, the _hunger_ of the Wall... and then I tore him free, so that his suffering would linger for all eternity."**

"The few, dusty old books that still mention your name made a point of your cruelty," Safiya said bluntly, still intent on him. "That's not an answer to Tarva's question."

" **So he _steals_ what the Wall took from him – a body, a face, a name. He wears them, as one might a mask, until they are also devoured by his unending hunger. So all your titles, all your declarations and determinations, spirit-eater... they are _worthless._ He will have those, too... and countless more, when you are gone."**

"No doom, you said?" Ammon Jerro muttered. "That sounds like doom to me." A brief pause, and he added awkwardly, "I am sorry."


	63. Again Myrkul

"No," Gann said fiercely, desperately. Despite all his determination, something in Myrkul's words carried conviction. Tarva turned and looked at him; he could feel the weight of her glance, heavy with love and a fading defiance. She, too, was beginning to believe, and that was unbearable. "No. Why now? Why _her?"_

" **Oh, it was no matter of choice,"** Myrkul said, deliberate and coldly amused. **"The Betrayer has no mind left to choose with. When he devours one mask, he simply waits for the next to appear. Perhaps you blundered too near, spirit-eater. Or... perhaps he lay in darkness, guarded by a dead, mongrel bear-"** and Okku roared his fury as the dead god baited him.

"If you still had a throat, I would tear it out!"

" **I don't,"** Myrkul said. **"And even when you were at your strongest, bear, you could never have touched me. Now, sit. I am talking to your mistress."** The god continued speaking, easily drowning out Tarva and Okku's simultaneous protests. In another time, it would almost have been funny – a skull commanding the proud bear god as if he were no more than a dog – but not now. Perhaps never again. **"He was trapped and forgotten, spirit-eater, until someone _gave_ you to him."**

"Nefris," Tarva whispered. "Lienna."

" **Only _love_ could be so cruel, I think." ** The weight of Myrkul's presence presses down more heavily. **"I have been called cruel... but I am _kinder_ than Sune ever was, in all her schemes and manipulations. I may punish mortals, but never while claiming to bless them... Love, selfish love, turned my priest against me and birthed his Crusade."**

"The Red Woman," the half-elf murmured, paler than ever.

" **Indeed,"** Myrkul said, seeming pleased as they put the pieces together. **"That is _truth._ The trappings of _justice_... ah, they come later, to seduce the gullible into dying for another man's whim."**

"You lie!" Kaelyn hurled the words at the dead thing. "Falsehoods are all you have to sustain you, and may you _choke on them!_ "

" **Oh, no."** His laughter rolled out again. **"A god does not easily die... he lives in the fear of him, which lingers on... in the doubts that he is truly gone... and in the suffering of those whose lives he brought to grief. In your suffering, spirit-eater. Every anguish that you sow, you unknowingly dedicate to me. Every mortal who cowers or cringes at your name... they are also cringing at mine. With every such pain, the embers of my soul burn a little brighter than before."**

With those words, Tarva's shoulders slumped; her head bowed, and her hand was limp and cold in his. Her words were directed at the ground, and they sounded calm, and almost conversational. "That's it. I knew there was a _why._ A reason. A need."

" **You are babbling,"** Myrkul observed coldly. **"If you have a point, spirit-eater, make it."**

"You could have let the Wall dissolve Akachi. You could have punished him in so many ways – some of them even crueller than this curse, I've no doubt. You chose this for a reason." The weapon master took a breath. "It's keeping you alive. If it ends, you will finally be forgotten, truly perish."

" **Ah, spirit-eater... what a sure wager you were. Of all the masks the Betrayer has worn, you are the first to know what you truly are. Two fates, bound together... one betrayed me, and the other never worshipped me at all. Together, you are my most faithful disciple."**

"No," Tarva said quietly. "I won't be. I can't... I am not... oh, gods..." Alarmed at the increasing unsteadiness of her voice, frightened and thoroughly demoralised by all that Myrkul had revealed, Gann gathered her into his arms. He held her tightly, wishing desperately for some way out, for Myrkul to stop hurting her, for this nightmare to _end_. Armour and all, she felt so small, so fragile. Okku shifted his warm, furry bulk against them; Kaelyn and Safiya stood beside them, silent and uncertain as Myrkul laughed.

Someone touched his shoulder. Gann raised his head – when had it become so heavy? – and saw Ammon Jerro looking at him. The yellow eyes were filled with a terrible pity. "Keep yourselves together," he advised quietly. "You're not done with Myrkul yet."

" **Not yet,"** the god agreed. **"There is one more piece of information I want you to have, spirit-eater."**

Tarva shuddered against him, gathering her courage to face Myrkul again. "I'm listening."

" **I tore Akachi from the Wall, but his place... ah, his place there is not empty. Your soul has gone to fill it."**

Kaelyn cried out; Safiya filled the air with sulphurous oaths; Gann froze in horror; and Tarva nodded, a sad, defeated little gesture. "Old news, Myrkul."

" **You knew... you _are_ clever, spirit-eater. When, and how, did you discover that? "**

"I dreamt it," Tarva said. "When Bishop dragged me into the Wall, I was already there... and later, I knew I wasn't free of it. Not entirely. Something in me was missing, and the Wall held it. The Wall of the Faithless imprisons souls – so what else could it be?"

She had been carrying that burden for so long, by herself... "How could you bear it?" Gann whispered. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"No point," Tarva replied quietly. "What would it change?"

Myrkul's jaw gaped wider in that hateful grin. **"Nothing. And when the Betrayer's hunger finally consumes your body and mind, your soul will dissolve into the Wall, and you will be no more. Unless..."**

A small shred of something too feeble to name hope flickered into existence. "Unless _what?_ " Gann demanded.

" **Unless the spirit-eater can do the impossible."**

"She has before," Ammon Jerro rasped. "With help. Which impossibility would you have us perform now?"

" **If she were to tear her soul free of the Wall... she might find her salvation."**

"Then we'll do it," Gann said.

"How?" Safiya asked – of him, or the dead god, or whoever might have an answer.

" **Oh, the road is already prepared,"** Myrkul replied, sly and cold. **"You have plumbed the depths of my Vault, hidden in the shadows of Mulsantir. You have seen the doorway Akachi built there, his bridge between the living world and the kingdom of the dead."**

"It is locked," Kaelyn said.

" **Its key is a Sword... a silver blade that _knows_ you well, spirit-eater. Even now it awaits you, reforged and whole once more, in the sanctum of one who _loves_ you."**

"One who loves Tarva, or one who loves Akachi?"

Myrkul laughed at Tarva's soft-voiced question. **"I will let you discover _that_ little morsel on your own. I cannot be there to enjoy the moment, but just knowing it must occur is amusement enough. And thereafter... _use_ the blade to open the Gate. Assault the City of Judgement. Tear your soul from the Wall of the Faithless. _Finish_ what Akachi begun."**

"Why?" Tarva asked, as she wrenched herself upright again. Gann looked down at her, a faint question in his eyes. She nodded, and reluctantly, he let her go. He loved her, impossibly, with everything in him; she was beautiful and... and so heart-breakingly _strong_ , as she questioned the old, dead god responsible for her death sentence. "Why would you encourage this? An end to Akachi's curse? To you? Are you misleading us?"

" **Oh, you may well spare your soul the agony of the Wall... but Akachi will live on. His hunger was born of the Wall... born of emptiness itself. How can you destroy a void, spirit-eater? No, my curse will endure. As will I. And when you assault the City of Judgement, in my name and in that of my curse, the horror and death you will wreak will stoke the embers of my soul to a blaze."** The death's head grinned. **"Your choice is stark, spirit-eater. Surrender your soul to the Hunger. Or lead the Crusade to save yourself."**

Kaelyn looked at Tarva. "I would gladly follow you to the Crusade."

"Thank you," was all she said in response, and even that was absent-minded. She was focused on Myrkul. Perhaps too focused, Gann thought, alarmed, as the distinctive presence of the spirit-eater coiled through the air like the scent of carrion.

" **Two portals provide passage from my drifting cairn. One brought you here. The other will lead you to the sanctum where the Blade and your ally await you. You might find haste desirable, if you wish to look upon her face. You will not be her only visitor today."**

There was an instant of silence, and then Safiya snarled, "Araman. I should have known better... we opened the door for him. That's why he walked away. The _toad_ -"

" **My hound is clever, no? My priest, who chose his brother and his brother's selfish whims over his god... but he saw his sin, his error, at his brother's defeat. He repented, and once more he serves me well."**

"Of his own will?" Tarva shook her head, as if to answer her own question. "I doubt it."

" **Ah, spirit-eater... you know me as well as Akachi once did. I placed certain... safeguards on Araman, it is true. Nothing onerous. A geas... his soul imprisoned in the City of Judgement... but only until he sends your ally's soul to its rightful place. Kelemvor allows it, for he is ashamed of his human weaknesses. He will not reverse _my_ judgements."**

"Fascinating as that is," Safiya said, "you said we ought to hurry, and I would rather like to catch up with Araman myself. Are you quite done?"

" **Oh, yes. I will see you again, spirit-eater."**

"No, you won't," Tarva answered him, as she spread her arms wide, and called the Hunger to waken.

Myrkul laughed at her defiance. How could something he'd created harm _him_? **"It is not your place to dispense judgement upon me. Even if it was, spirit-eater, the hunger of the Wall holds no sway over gods."**

"We'll see," Tarva forced out, as the dark shape of her curse solidified, and reached out. It grew, and grew, huge beyond measure, as its tendrils curled around Myrkul's skull.

"Tarva!" Kaelyn called a warning – Safiya echoed it, as the weight of Myrkul's regard lightened. Something inside Gann whispered that this was not wise... but he trusted Tarva to know what she was doing.

And what she was doing... was ending Myrkul. Not consuming him – and the effort it took her to refrain drew her face into a snarling rictus.

"Master!" The Death Knights rushed up the spine, feeling their god weaken, and ready to avenge this blasphemy. Gann and the others readied themselves to meet their assault, reaching for their magic, freeing their weapons...

... In a flash of pure white light, the undead crumbled to dust, and Myrkul's cold, malicious presence was simply gone.

Tarva straightened as the spirit-eater slowly disappeared beneath her skin, and her breathing steadied. She looked the better for it; there was even some colour in her cheeks.

And those was all secondary, foolish little thoughts that jittered at the back of his mind.

"Did you just... did you just _eat_ Myrkul?" Safiya asked, sounding every bit as flabbergasted as Gann felt, and Kaelyn looked.

"No," Tarva said. "But I did... send him to his rest. I think."

"How is it you aren't sure?" Kaelyn sounded unshaken. But then, she always did.

"He was already dead, but he wasn't undead, and his... soul? spirit? essence? was unlike anything I've encountered before. I don't know whether I dispersed it, or freed it, or sent it to Kelemvor's judgement..."

"That would be ironic indeed," Gann commented. He took her hands in his, and studied her carefully; she returned his scrutiny with a tired little nod that said 'I'm all right'. It was not entirely true – how could it be? – but it was close enough for now. They had a goal, a faint hope, and she survived.

"All I know is that I _didn't_ consume him. I suspect that would have been... unwise." Tarva sighed, continuing with barely a pause. "I'm not even sure – whatever I did – was any better."

"This second-guessing serves no purpose. Either way," Ammon Jerro said, his yellowish eyes fixed on Tarva, "it is done. Myrkul is no more." He scratched at his red beard. "That is a great power indeed. I suspect it would have been enough to destroy the King of Shadows even without the Sword of Gith. Had I paid more credence to Rashemi ghost-stories, I would have sought it out long ago."

Kaelyn's hand was closed about her mace. Ammon regarded the half-celestial with sardonic amusement.

"Now who's second-guessing?" Tarva interjected. "Well, Ammon, I said we'd get you clear of the Academy; I don't think you _get_ any clearer than the Astral Plane. What do you want to do now?"

The warlock returned a pair of different questions. "Are you intent on following the path Myrkul laid out for you? Will you lead the Crusade and storm the City of Judgement?"

"I see no other choice," Tarva replied, slowly, resigned.

Ammon nodded once. "Then I may yet have a part to play. With your permission, then, I will leave you here. There are ties and debts I may still call upon. I will gather my allies and servants, and on the day the Crusade returns... I will be there."

"You would support the Crusade?" Kaelyn asked, as eagerly as if she had never been horrified by the man's evil deeds, as though they counted for nothing in the face of his help to bring down the Wall of the Faithless.

Gann had believed what Tarva had said about Kaelyn's complete dedication to her goal, but he hadn't expected such a dramatic example of what she was willing to sacrifice for it so soon.

Ammon Jerro smiled like a shark. "Oh, yes."

"I am glad," the cleric said softly. "This will be your atonement and redemption."

His smile widened further, displaying even more teeth. "You expect me to find redemption by _rebelling_ against the gods? I don't think, little dove, that Ilmater would echo your words." The glowing tattoos on his forehead flashed brighter as he raised his hands and his form dissolved in light.

Only an echo of his chilling laughter remained.


	64. The Raven

"You would make camp here? On Myrkul's bones?" Tarva asked, seemingly taken aback.

Kaelyn tilted her head, fixing the half-elf with her mild gaze. "Despite Myrkul's urgings of haste, I do not think it would be wise for us to continue without rest. We do not know what waits ahead. The Astral Plane is not inherently dangerous, and neither Myrkul nor his adherents can harm us further. Besides," and the Dove ducked her head slightly, "it would... it would please me."

"My," Safiya said, "is that actual vindictiveness I hear?" Kaelyn's soft denial carried little conviction to Gann's ear. "Much as I want to pull Araman's brains out of his ears – and maybe turn his skin inside out while I'm at it – I think you're right."

Tarva looked back up at the empty skull, and shrugged. "Well, there's no one and nothing about except us... Gann, if we were to rest here, could you manage?"

"It's not my watch," he said lightly. "The sky will hardly concern me when I am dreaming."

"Whose watch is it?" Safiya asked, as she set to work kindling a fire, and the others turned to their usual tasks in setting up a camp. "I rather lost track."

"Mine," Okku rumbled. "I do not care for this place. Guard your dreaming, shaman."

"A curious warning, my gaudy friend. Of what should I be wary?"

Okku sounded uncharacteristically uncertain as he admitted, "I am unsure."

"That's reassuring," Tarva muttered.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The alien sky and the unvarying cold of the Astral Plane offered no clues to how much time had passed before everyone had settled down; Gann spared a thought to wonder Okku would keep track of time. Well, it was not really his problem.

Sleep came slowly to him, but finally he drifted into the familiar dreamscape...

... He is aware of Safiya's fractured dreams and Kaelyn's stormy visions, along with Okku's more prosaic dreaming, but feels no real inclination to seek them out. If Ammon Jerro had stayed with them and dreamt, perhaps curiosity would tempt him from his path, but as it is, he seeks Tarva.

She is strangely elusive. He would not have thought her dreams could mask themselves from him now, joined as they are. He is reminded of those first few weeks, when he could not find a way to her. Then he finds the spiral path; the rainbowy, shimmering portal at its end suggests that once more she has constructed something large and elaborate.

He steps through without hesitation.

He finds himself in a dark, windowless chamber of stone. An elf girl pushes back her cloud of midnight hair, and turns an anguished face towards Gann. In kinder times, perhaps, her eyes would have been a bold blue, but long nights of weeping have washed all the colour from them. Only then does he recognise how transparent she is – as immaterial as the faintest of memories, or as a... spirit?

His mind races, trying to identify her – but it is no one he has seen in Tarva's dreams before, or in the waking world. There is a troubling resemblance in her ravaged features, and it takes Gann a long moment to recognise that she looks a little like Tarva.

When she speaks, her voice cracks under the weight of her words. "He _suffers_. He screams... someone must stop this. Why will no one listen?"

"I will listen," Gann says gently. "Tell me, who are you?"

She doesn't seem to hear him; her eyes gaze through him, fixed on some distant horror. "They tell me my love is gone. Gone! If he is 'gone', then who is it who screams, who writhes in agony?"

Her robe, Gann sees, is scarlet. He isn't sure, suddenly, if it had been that colour before. He looks harder at her face, and for a moment, thinks he sees someone else looking out from those dark, haunted eyes. "Will you end his suffering?"

Dark eyes. Not... not like Tarva's, nor even Kaelyn's...

"End this," she begs him. "If enough of us demand his release, an ending to his pain, surely he will let him go... it isn't too late. It _can't_ be. We can still save him..."

Red robe, and dark eyes... like Safiya.

"Please," she begs him. "For love."

Or _the Red Woman._ "Wait!" he cries out as she fades away, leaving a portal – and questions – behind. He is missing something crucial, he knows – perhaps, when he finds Tarva, she will understand.

He crosses through the portal...

... and into a place he knows well. He has seen the great chamber where Tarva faced the King of Shadows many times. Now no companions stand beside her, and she is unarmed and unarmoured – entirely vulnerable as she faces down the massive thing, darkness billowing from it.

She is speaking in a slow, measured cadence. "I have learned much since the last time I stood before you," Tarva says, "I _know_ you now. You were a man once, and though you lived long ago and far away... we are alike. You had a family, teachers, friends, even followers – when you were thrust into leadership that you had never sought. You grew to accept it, because it had to be done and nobody else could do it. You were a protector, once."

"Tarva!" Gann calls her name as he crosses to her side.

She looks at him for just an instant, her eyes dark and grave as night, and turns back to the wavering form of the King of Shadows. Her voice is softer as she addresses him again. "You _loved_. There was one person who was all the world to you; all you wanted was their safety, and so you made your choice. Perhaps it was the wrong one... Because everything changed. Through no fault of your own, you could no longer protect those you loved. Instead you were a danger to them."

She is speaking of the King of Shadows, Gann knows, and... and of herself. But there is a link he is missing.

"You were changed; more, you were all but destroyed. I know... I know how little is left of you. I don't know if there is any way to undo what was done to you – but I swear that I will try..." The shadowy shape writhes, its tattered cloak streaming out in a new shape. It reminds him of – no, it _is_ the spirit-eater. "... Akachi." A sudden flare of stark, bone-white light throws the figure into relief, and Tarva grabs his hand and pulls him toward the portal...

... rich green sward lies between the wooden huts of a tiny village. She smiles at him, a little ruefully. "You do choose the strangest times to show up, Gann."

"One of my many talents," he murmurs, tucking a stray lock of hair behind the tip of her ear. "I met a... rather intriguing person in your dream, before I found you."

"Tell me," she says, and wanders with him along the path between the houses as he describes the girl he'd encountered.

"Ah," Tarva says softly, and re-forms the room around them, complete with the weeping girl standing before them. "This one?"

"Yes."

"These are the Ruins of Arvahn," the half-elf tells him. "And she... I don't know her name, but she was in love with the man who became the King of Shadows. And the Red Woman was Akachi's lover. Perhaps that's why they blended together... and why you met her." She inclines her head respectfully to the phantom, and draws him out into the corridor.

Twinned lamps on the granite walls glow with a pale, piercing light. Its illumination is pitiless, filling Tarva's hollowed cheeks with shadow. "Let's go," she murmurs. "I'd rather not meet the Silken Sisters tonight."

He follows her between the lamps, his footfalls strangely muffled on the stone floor. "Who are they?"

"I'm not sure that 'they' is the right word," Tarva says. "There were six, elven women of extraordinary talent with steel and spell. The Illefarn sent them against the King of Shadows, when they first thought their guardian had turned against them. They were... defeated." She shakes her head, a slight negation, and her next words are barely a breath. "Went in six, came out one."

"You have said that before," he notes. "What does it mean?"

Her eyes rise to his. "First the six were killed and scoured bare, their souls left screaming in the dark... and then he combined them. Six spirits hammered into one – but not... not... Not all of them survived." She takes a shaky breath. "She spoke with three voices, when we met her. The others were lost... I do not think what was left of her – or them – was entirely sane."

Ah. He sees. "The devils asked you to do the same thing."

"Yes," Tarva says. The dream wavers about her, amorphous shapes and vague images that strengthen and fade.

Gann lets the matter drop as he takes control of the fluctuating dreamscape, pulling it back to the green grass and ramshackle huts it had earlier been. "You are very pensive, my love."

"I was thinking of Myrkul," Tarva says quietly.

"He seems to have that effect," Gann agrees. "But are you thinking of him, or of what he said? Of your soul, of the Crusade? It's clear that Akachi is on your mind."

"Well, yes. But mostly... what he said to you. Gann... you... you are Faithless."

It's in her voice; this is the first thing that Myrkul had said to hurt her, and repeating it now is no easier for her than hearing it then. He opens his mouth – although he isn't sure what he's going to say. It doesn't matter in any case.

"That's your choice to make," she says, slowly and a little sadly. "I would not change or force you against your will for all the world. Nor am I Kaelyn, to lecture you until you beg for mercy." They stand, now, on a deep scar on the green earth. There is power in it, and a distant sound, like a crying child. Tarva takes a deep breath. "But I am Akachi's heir in this too, it seems. Gann, I _will not_ let the Wall have you."

"Tarva-"

"Either Kaelyn succeeds and the Wall is destroyed, or I will come for you." Her voice is toneless, unemotional; she is not making a declaration, not even a promise. She is simply stating an unalterable fact.

And that – _no_. Akachi's punishment for the same crime inflicted measureless suffering upon Rashemen, upon the unfortunate carriers of his curse – even upon the woman he loved. Akachi himself was an empty abomination of the man he had been. Such a horror could not be wrought upon her. Not for his sake. "Tarva, no -"

"It cannot be otherwise, Gann-of-Dreams," Tarva says, and begins to fade into the waking world even as he reaches for her.

"No," he says to the vanishing dreamscape.

There must be some other way.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Wake _up_!" Safiya's face was looming over him, rather blurred. This was, as Gann realised a moment later, because she was shaking him. "You're last up, as usual."

"Only because you woke me last," he retorted, focusing carefully away from the vertiginous sky.

"Nobody else needed waking," she said, giving him a hand up. Beside the curving hip-bone, Tarva and Kaelyn were deep in discussion. His beloved just looked at him an instant, but her eyes said a thousand things.

She was so close – five steps would have carried him to her side – but she seemed strangely remote. Her attention was turned inward, and very far away; it was almost as though a thin veil separated her from them all.

The priestess's voice carried.

"Our philosophies and our desire to save others link us already. In travelling with you and seeing proof of your heart, I can channel my strength through that link to empower you. You may find greater calm in seeing wisdom and learning from the events around you, but it is not solely a meditative bond. When others seek to prevent you from acting, they will find they cannot. Will you accept this, the Devotion of the Menagerie?"

With a moment's pause and concentration, Tarva returned to them. "I will," she replied to Kaelyn.

"So be it. You are one of the Menagerie."

"Oh, and what sort of animal will you name her after?" Safiya called out, shooting a mischievous glance over her shoulder at Gann. Even after all that Myrkul had said to them, and the slight chance that sustained them, they still had this much. Humour and a semblance of normality... one could go far with such help.

As far as the land of the dead.

"A name?" the Dove blinked. "I had not thought of that. My siblings are the Stag, the Lions, and the Crow. You have met the Otak. What name would suit you?"

Gann picked up his cue neatly, aiming his friendly jab at Okku as much as Kaelyn. "I should think that would be obvious, for one who defeated the mighty bear god in battle."

"Don't, hagspawn," Old Father Bear growled.

"I was going to say 'turtle', my garish friend. To travel with you requires a thick shell and tremendous patience – which our dear leader has displayed time and time again."

Okku head-butted him – and not gently, either.

"It must be a thing of the wild, or something that once was part of the natural order," Kaelyn said, ignoring Tarva shaking her head at the bear. "Tell me, when your power first emerged and set you on this course, what was your first victim?"

"Faithful Nakata," Okku answered for the half-elf. "No. That is no way to honour the wolf."

"This is harder than I had expected," Kaelyn murmured. "Tarva, you have not voiced your thoughts on this matter."

"That's because I don't know." With an effort, her mouth quirked slightly. "You should have asked me about Safiya. She's the Mongoose."

Kaelyn said, "I was not offering this to Safiya," at almost the same instant Safiya said "What?"

Tarva shrugged. "For her curiosity, mostly, but they also kill snakes. That reminded me of Araman."

Safiya tilted her head to one side, considering this. Then she nodded. "I like that, actually."

"That is still beside the point," Kaelyn said, as Gann finished with his armour.

And suddenly, he knew. "The Raven."

"The raven is a bird of ill omen," Kaelyn protested. "An eater of carrion."

"That is not all a raven is," Gann said, holding out his hand to Tarva. An expression of intense yearning flashed over her features; then her face stilled, and she shook her head just slightly. He understood, and did not understand. She had fed only the day before, so how could the Hunger be so strong that she did not dare touch him? His hand dropped to his side, and he continued after only a moment. "Just as Tarva is more than the spirit-eater. The raven is a symbol of battle amongst the Rashemi, but also of wisdom and strength. There is nothing on the earth or in the skies a raven need fear – save, perhaps, an eagle. I think all those things fit. Even the mischief the raven is known for."

"The Menagerie already has a Crow," Safiya said. "They're very closely related."

Gann ignored this. "And for Hukhin and Myunni, who came to us in Mulsantir. I called, but they did not answer for me, or for Gabi. They came for Tarva. It was... unusual."

"You did not tell me that, shaman." Okku inspected his claws. "Hmph. Those two... their allegiance does not belong solely to me." He lifted his ponderous head to regard Tarva more closely. "Neither does yours. I agree with the hagspawn."

Kaelyn's nod was the echo of Tarva's; as the weapon master accepted the name, the Dove traced a sign in the air over her head. "Then it is done. You bear the mantle of the Raven."

Gann's next words were murmured, addressed to the half-elf alone. "And the sheen of their feathers... it is like your hair."

"Flattery," Tarva replied, equally soft, as they finished packing up their makeshift camp and gathered about the outward portal.

"Me, flatter you?" Gann shook his head. "The things you accuse me of doing... I speak only truth."

Safiya rubbed her hands together, as though her fingers physically itched with all the spells stored in them. "Let's go find that bastard seed of an undead harpy and a leprous hezrou -" and _that_ was a mental image Gann hadn't really needed – "and gut him."


	65. Again Araman

The maze of tunnels was littered with crumbled remains of the undead – Myrkul's servitors, according to Kaelyn, without the dead god's sustaining power. Okku led them, following Araman's scent; Safiya walked beside him, and with a rather spectacular display of empathy and equal lack of subtlety, had insisted that Kaelyn keep them company.

Which left Gann and Tarva trailing behind, granted a small measure of privacy and space to talk, to be together.

"It's layered thick, Thayan," Okku rumbled. "He's been going in circles for hours."

"Good."

Tarva's hands gripped so tightly about her scythe handle Gann almost expected to hear the wood splinter. "Is it so bad?" he murmured. "The Hunger?"

He didn't really need to hear her say it; he was familiar with her curse and how she reacted to it by now, and he'd been able to sense its strength since the weapon master had first entered his jail cell, but...

She didn't soften the truth for him. "Yes." A moment's pause, and she answered the questions he hadn't yet known he was trying to ask. "Down in the Vault... that Gate knew me, and I recognised it. Or Akachi did... It's a bit harder to find the lines between us now." The half-elf exhaled slowly. "I was so _glad_ to end Myrkul, but I don't know whose desire for vengeance it was. I feel- anticipation's the best word, but it's not quite right. Something's going to happen, something big, and I should know what." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'm babbling at you."

"No," he said. "You need never apologise to me - or if you feel you must, apologise for not telling me what you suspected." It was difficult for him to say – harder still to suppress the urge to hold her close and comfort her as he said, "That the Wall still held your soul."

"That wasn't something you needed to carry."

"I disagree," Gann replied softly. "I love you, and what burdens you weighs also on me. I would take your curse from you if I could. Since I cannot... ah, Tarva. Let me share what I can." _While I can_... he did not speak the words, but knew that they both heard them.

She looked at him for just a moment, her expression both tender and intensely weary. "I... I can't do that. Not to you." Before he could protest or argue, her lips curved, just slightly. "But if you will share them, Gann... I'd offer you all the rest of my days. However short – or long – they may be."

"I had no intention of leaving your side in any case," he answered, short words that could not convey the whole of what he felt.

"He went through here," Okku told Safiya.

She examined the strange piece of equipment – something like the one that had focused the images of Nefris's mirrors. "Interesting..." she murmured, drawing the word out. "A stable, short-range, paired teleportation spell. That _has_ to be more of my mother's work. Gann, Tarva, you heard that?"

Gann, rather reluctantly, looked up from Tarva's face. "We're coming."

He watched as the others disappeared through the portal, then stepped through himself.

... "This way," Old Father Bear declared.

Tarva drew the priestess aside, casting an apologetic glance at Gann. "Kaelyn, there's something... I don't understand it. I was hoping you might."

"I am listening."

The half-elf pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. "The gods... as I understand it, it is rare for one to interfere with the judgements of another. That's why the Wall of the Faithless still stands and Araman's soul can still be held hostage, despite Kelemvor deposing Myrkul; why we had to prepare the offering and go to the Red Tree to gain Chauntea's intercession for Talona's poison – it required something extraordinary to allow Chauntea to act against the Mistress of Diseases."

"That is so," Kaelyn replied, as serene as ever. "What troubles you?"

"Akachi was False, but not Faithless. He should not have been condemned to the Wall – but Myrkul was his god, and could punish him as he willed." Tarva shook her head slightly, and got to her point. "I am not Faithless, either. How could Myrkul – why didn't Chauntea protect me?"

The Dove was silent, her wings stirring the air.

"These creatures you call gods –" the words fell from with the ease of long habit, scornful and almost bitter – and then choked off. He had stood upon the corpse of Myrkul, and known it for something _other_ , something _more_. He knew that Tarva was cursed, knew the power of the Hunger – and how could such a thing have been created? He had stood before the Wall of the Faithless, in a dream that had felt like more... could he really dismiss gods so lightly now?

The Wall... so many people now had told him it would take him at his death – some of them with no reason to lie. He could not deny _its_ existence any longer, and he had no desire to be imprisoned and face oblivion at the end of his days. Kaelyn sought to tear it down, and Tarva stood with her... he would have followed Tarva to the Crusade in any case, but now, he had another reason. The Wall's destruction would be his salvation, too.

"Here!" Okku called out, interrupting both his thoughts and Kaelyn's barely-begun answer. The bear was standing in front of a solid wall. "The trail ends here – and it's barely half an hour old."

"Kaji," Safiya said, and her familiar obediently flew head-first into the wall. The Red Wizard sighed. "No, Kaji. It's a fake. Find the latch."

"Yes, Mistress!" and the homunculus fluttered over the stonework.

"I really have to adjust those command algorithms," Safiya muttered to herself.

"I believe..." Kaelyn said slowly to Tarva, "that Myrkul could not have acted against you directly. Your punishment... it is only a side-effect of Akachi's. You were not even chosen to bear this curse – it was never aimed at you specifically. If it had been, then Chauntea might have shielded you. But there is still an element of chance in the worlds, and in the face of such things, even the gods must yield."

"Perhaps," Gann conceded, "but this was not chance, according to Myrkul. 'Someone gave you to him', remember?" Tarva nodded, just slightly.

Kaelyn was less swayed. "Are you so quick to believe the words of a dead god, Gannayev? He lied, and lied again."

"I don't think he did," Tarva said quietly. "I think he would take more pleasure in a truth that hurt than even the best-crafted of lies."

"But-"

"Got it!" Kaji crowed. "Wall sink!"

Indeed it did, revealing a narrow corridor with another teleporter at its end. A throng of footprints led to it, clearly marked in the thick dust. Okku sneezed, blowing some of them away. "Ready, Thayan?"

"You needn't ask," Safiya answered, her teeth bared in a savage grin.

They regrouped on the other side, where a lone Red Wizard, bald head turned away from them, studied a sturdy, bolted door. It bore many scars and scorch marks, and, in a few places, the furrows of a clawed hand. He raised his arms, power crackling about him – then spun around, the spell dying when Safiya called his name.

He didn't look at Safiya, though – which was rather unwise of him, Gann considered. Instead, he inclined his head to Tarva in a sorrowful greeting. "Brother. Forgive me what I do here." Safiya's spell hit him, dissipating almost entirely upon his protections. Gann pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it; Kaelyn raised her mace as Okku bared his teeth and took up his stance in front of Safiya. None of them attacked. Kaelyn and Okku were too honourable to make the first strike, and while Gann was usually far too practical to let such scruples get in the way, especially as he knew just what an enraged Red Wizard could do, Araman's passivity somehow held him equally still.

Tensed, but still.

Safiya, on the other hand... Araman hissed as another spell flew home to him, but he was far too focused on Tarva to shape an attack. "My fight has _always_ been with the Red Woman... from the very start."

His beloved was far too pale. "I dreamed something very like this," she murmured.

"I was there," Gann reminded her.

"A little help here?" Safiya forced through gritted teeth, her fingers sparking with light.

"Will you claim that our duty to the gods is greater than love, as you did then?" Tarva asked Araman. "Ahrraman," – she pronounced the name oddly, summoning memories of past dreams – "Myrkul is no more. His geas no longer binds you. Choose for yourself."

"Only a Faithless soul," Araman said, gazing into the distance, as unmoved by Safiya's magic as a mountain would be. "When death came, suddenly, you betrayed our god - _all_ the gods – to tear your lover from the Wall. Others suffered in your cause. They believed in your Crusade, or they trusted you, but my brother's only thought was for his love... Never the evils that we committed in her name." He turned his gaze back to Tarva, and this, finally, was an ultimatum. "I will send the Red Woman back to the Wall where she belongs, or I will die, and go to my judgment with an untroubled heart."

"That is your choice?" Tarva asked, and perhaps only Gann heard her add "... _brother._ "

Araman's spell was answer enough. Finally freed to act, Okku and Kaelyn closed with him; Gann sent his spell after Safiya's, and Tarva...

... she had barely moved. Gann cast a glance over her shoulder as he ducked out of harm's way; her hands tensed on her scythe handle, then relaxed. She stepped forward, then back again, almost vibrating as her desire to help them warred with the remnants of Akachi, who could not bear to raise a blade against his brother.

Despite the strength of his protections, Araman could deal little damage to them. He cried out the words of a divine invocation – and nothing happened. "What have you done?"

"I told you," Tarva answered, as Okku rose to his hind legs, roaring. "Myrkul is no more. I ended him."

"Impossible," the Red Wizard said, as spells rained down upon him.

After a time, he fell silent. Safiya lowered her hands, a half-formed spell fizzling away, and approached the body of the man who had murdered her mother. She looked down at him. It was not a pretty sight, between magic and mace, claws and teeth. "Bastard. That was too easy an end for you." Savagely, she kicked the dead man's face. The nose splintered beneath her boot.

" _No. Please._ " Safiya turned away from Araman's corpse at the raw, painful note in Tarva's voice.

"That beast –"

"He's dead. He killed your mother, he killed Lienna, but now he's dead. You don't have to – he doesn't –"

"Rabid dogs must be put down for the good of the pack," Okku said. "It is not a duty to rejoice in."

Safiya looked down at Araman, then at Tarva. There was something strange in her expression (and Safiya was not usually difficult to read), and she asked, "Is that Tarva or Akachi speaking?"

Tarva was silent. After a long moment, Safiya turned away. The door that had been bolted, that had held out Araman for hours, simply swung open under her touch.


	66. The Founder

Inside was a spacious room that recalled both Safiya's bedroom and Nefris's study. Homunculi, golems, and other constructs Gann had no name for cluttered around the stuffed bookcases and messy desks. On the back wall stood an archway like the one that had taken them to Myrkul, and beside it was a red-robed figure, bent over a work-bench, face hidden from them.

The silence held for a long instant. Safiya was frowning, rubbing at her temples as though they pained her; Tarva's hands shifted restlessly on her scythe-handle. Just as Gann decided to say something, the soft sound of Kaelyn's voice stirred the air. "Greetings."

The red shape straightened, bringing the withered face of an ancient Red Wizard woman into view. Safiya gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "M-mother? I thought you were... dead. But-"

Gann had formed an impression, from what Safiya had said of her mother, of a younger, more vital woman than this wrinkled crone. How old had she been when she birthed Safiya? And however could she have attracted a man to father her daughter? He shook his head, just slightly – Safiya was beautiful now, but if her mother was any indication (and she'd said they looked similar) it certainly wasn't going to last.

"- but I'm old," the woman croaked, hoarse as a raven, finishing Safiya's sentence for her. "Doddering. A rotting antique. No, I am not the woman you remember, Safiya. Nor am I your mother... not in the sense you have always believed me to be."

Gann voiced his instinctive reaction before he could think better of it. "Well, that should come as a relief." He almost ducked; by rights, that sort of comment should have merited some reprisal from Safiya or Tarva, but both were focused entirely on the woman before them, and probably hadn't even heard him. Tarva's eyes were troubled, even in her impassive face; Safiya was staring at the old woman with a look of dawning recognition.

"Do you know me, my sweet daughter? Do you _understand_?"

Safiya drew in a deep breath. "Yes. I do now. You and I... my mother... and _Lienna_?" The crone nodded, looking back at Safiya, encouraging her to keep speaking. "We're... all parts of the same soul. The same person – and that person is... _oh._ " Then the blood drained from Safiya's golden skin, and she glanced at Tarva. "But there's someone here you've been waiting to meet."

Wait, what? Safiya was not a whole person, but just another part of this woman, whoever she was? But – but – there were _two_ of them! He could see them both, old and young, friend and stranger, and _who_ –

The old woman smiled tenderly at Tarva, an expression of such radiance, such – _love? –_ that she looked decades younger, and suddenly Gann could see Safiya in her. It still made no sense. And what she said made even less. "My Akachi..."

Behind him, Kaelyn said almost to herself, "You... you are _she_. You should have been long dead. How is this possible?"

"How our faces have changed," the woman continued, ignoring Kaelyn entirely. "I've seen hags comelier than the prune I've become. I must be hideous to you... to _him._ If Akachi was not... the thing that Myrkul made him... he would regard me with disgust."

Tarva shook her head, but it was impossible to tell if she was disagreeing with the crone or just perplexed. " _Gods_ ," she said, her voice faint. "I've never seen you in my life. But... but I _know_ you."

"It would be comforting to think you did... but I don't think you are _him._ Not really." The old woman sighed. "My Akachi is gone, I know. Nothing more than a mindless hunger that seethes beneath your flesh. My fault."

Suddenly, the words, and the scraps of Akachi's tale fell into place for Gann. This woman was impossibly ancient because she had lived long ago. She spoke of Akachi, and looked at Tarva with the eyes of a lover, because she was... "You are the one he went to save," Gann said. "The soul he tore from the Wall."

"The Red Woman," Tarva echoed.

Yes. The figure who had haunted her dreams, wearing a face that was so nearly Safiya's... it had been this woman, as she had been when Akachi had known her. And that... that was why those dreams had been so strange, why they had not felt like Tarva's. They hadn't been. They were _Akachi's._

"The Founder," Safiya added quietly. Gann glanced at her; she seemed to be taking the situation well. How did one cope with such knowledge? To be revealed as part of another person, with their own agendas and memories and lost loves?

"So much lost," the Founder mused. "So much, for one fool girl. All the lives of his followers, all that my beloved was, he sacrificed for me." Her mouth set in a bitter line. "Better that he had left me to rot, and found another pretty thing to distract him."

"He loved you," Tarva said quietly. "I believe... some part of what he has become loves you still. I have dreamed of you."

The old woman's hand leaped to cover her mouth, in a gesture Gann had seen Safiya make a dozen times when startled. There was a suspicious brightness about her eyes.

"Tell me," the half-elf said. "Tell me everything."

The Founder raised her head, almost defiantly. "Would you have me defend my actions? I placed you in the barrow, yes. I allowed you to be joined with the monster my beloved became, yes. I tore the shard of Gith from your chest. Not with pride, but I did it. I have used you and manipulated you to end my lover's curse." All softness had disappeared from her expression as she added, "And if you _fail_ , I will try again. I would sacrifice a thousand like you. I will do _all_ it takes to save him."

"For love." Gann repeated the words without condemnation or agreement, words that she'd said while covered in Tarva's blood.

The Red Woman looked at him, weighing him up, then inclined her head. "For love. Love will break oaths, shatter faiths, and outlive gods. Do you know, hagspawn, how love endures? How it will drive you to desperation and evil acts, even when your hope is merely to end the suffering of your beloved? Even..." and her voice fell. It was barely a whisper when she said, "even when you know that you will never be together again?"

He looked at Tarva, the Dreamer's Heart wrapping him with the warmth of her love, and was silent. The Founder nodded her wrinkled little head, as if to acknowledge some suspicion confirmed.

"I always heard you," Safiya said softly, after a moment. "Low voices, a crowd of people in another room."

"Our minds were never truly separate, my sweet daughter," the woman said. "The elements of a soul can be teased apart into different facets, but they are part of a whole... a whole that _remembers_ itself."

"I know," Safiya said, almost smiling. "I took twelve years of your Soul Theory classes, remember?"

The Red Woman did smile, then. "You are all that was _best_ in me – sweetness, curiosity, intelligence, loyalty... even humour. Everything that Akachi loved and gave his soul to save, lives in you. You alone, of all of us, carry none of the evil I have done to save him – you began as a part of me, a severed element of my soul, but you are now far, far more." She looks at Tarva. "Guard each other well on the path you walk. You are both precious to me."

"I know why you value Safiya," Tarva said. "But me? I am only a vessel for your Akachi, a gamble at ending his torment. You will find another if - _when_ ," and that was an accusation, "he consumes me."

The Founder did not answer Tarva's charge. " _You_ are his heir, the first in many long centuries. His hunger more readily bends to your will, and you... you can even glimpse some of his memories."

"I don't understand," the weapon master said.

"You are bound through the Sword – to my beloved, and to _all_ the Sword-bearers."

"Of course." Tarva sighed, and turned to Gann. A rueful half-smile twisted her lips – and it had been too long since he'd seen that look. A small reminder of normality, of (even slightly) easier times... "It _would_ all come back to that damned Sword."

"Perhaps if you pitched it down a well?" he suggested.

"I don't think that would gain me anything, except a small measure of satisfaction. It'd still stalk me, I swear it."

The Founder cleared her throat. She and Safiya wore near-identical expressions of mingled amusement and frustration. "You know your time is short. Before I give you the Sword of Gith, have you more questions? Or judgements?"

"Just the one question, in several parts," Tarva said, her face still and emotionless. "What was your plan, and how far are we from its end, and are there any more surprises waiting for me?"

So the Founder told them everything. How she had founded the Academy for the sole purpose of shedding light on the way to free Akachi. How she had split her soul into four pieces: the Founder, who would remain hidden in the dark and pull the strings from there; Nefris, who would lead the Academy and raise Safiya, carrying the greatest part of the Founder's magic; Lienna, who would monitor Rashemen, Akachi's most favoured hunting-ground, for the strength and numbers of its spirit-guardians; and Safiya, who was the innocent, the preservation of all that Akachi had loved.

How Araman, no longer recognisable as Akachi's young, laughing brother, had infiltrated the Academy, and waited for his time to strike against the Founder and all her plans.

How Lienna had taught the last bearer of the Hunger the runes to bind the curse in Okku's barrow. How they had looked for the right host, one who could finally end Akachi's torment.

How, finally, through sources the Red Woman would not name (but Tarva shook her head as if she had a good idea), they had learned of the Kalach-Cha. When the time was right and their plans were fully laid, they had sent Nefris's gargoyles to take her.

"Chauntea's mercy," Tarva interjected at that point, sounding wry and weary and irritated all at once. "You could have just _asked._ "

"What," Safiya said, "something like, 'You've never met us, but we're hoping you'll volunteer to be infected with a centuries-old curse. You see, we've got this cunning plan to undo it..."

Tarva subsided, and the Red Woman continued the tale.

After all his time at the Academy, Araman had known who Nefris was. When he recognised Lienna, he struck, leaving the Founder without her agents. Safiya alone was left, and she knew only what Nefris had told her – to find the stranger in Okku's barrow, and to guard her carefully.

"As though her life was worth more to me than all the lives on all the planes," Safiya repeated her mother's words. "As if... as if I loved her." She flashed a sardonic grin at Tarva. "That's why I was so devastated when you turned to Gann."

"If I thought for a moment you meant that," Gann said, his levity rather forced, "I would be forced to challenge you to a duel for her favour."

"You'd lose," Tarva added. "I'm sorry, Safiya, but if it came down to blows between you two, over me, I'd stand with Gann."

"That's cheating, you know."

"So?"

With both Nefris and Lienna dead, and Araman searching for the Founder, it hadn't been safe for her to reach out to Safiya. She'd been left alone, as they blundered through the Ashenwood and the Wells of Lurue. Finally, at Coveya Kurg'annis, Safiya and the others had picked up a thread of the plan, enough to bring them to the Academy, and to the Founder.

"Now," the Red Woman said, "there is little left to do. Take the Sword of Gith, and follow the road prepared for you. I have alerted my beloved's generals – Zoab, Rammaq, Sey'ryu – and they will meet you in the land of the dead. The Crusade will rise again. Follow it, and tear your soul from the Wall." The crone ran her hand over her scalp – another of Safiya's gestures. "Your soul has an affinity for its proper body, and will displace my Akachi's painlessly. The tiny fragments of him that remain would disperse, as vapour into the air. He will know peace at last."

"Wait," Tarva said. "Myrkul... he said that I could free myself by regaining my soul, but that the Hunger would continue."

The Founder's face hardened. "Then he _lied_. Your salvation is Akachi's also. The dead god told me, and I was not kind in my questioning."

"He lied to _one_ of us," Tarva agreed, "I don't know which."

"I do not understand," Kaelyn murmured. "Not only this matter of Myrkul's falsehoods... but Akachi is nothing but Hunger now. I do not see how he could be ended. How is a void to be destroyed?"

"How do you kill a hole?" Tarva muttered to herself. Then a pause. She blinked, the light of epiphany in her eyes. "By... by _filling_ it!" She hurled her pack to the ground, rummaging through it until she found what she was looking for.

Three mask fragments, forged in dreams that had not been hers, but shapings of Akachi's memory...

The Founder stretched out a shaking hand to a piece that was red one moment and dark the next, while Tarva explained how they had come by them. There was no certainty in the old woman's eyes. "Perhaps... I do not know what these might mean. Perhaps if you could reforge the mask, but I... I simply do not know." She sighed, and raised her face from them. "I trust you, stranger, to do the best you can. Here."

She crossed the room to a small wooden cupboard, withdrawing a magnificent silver blade. Gann had witnessed Tarva's dreams of it, and saw now, despite her efforts to hide it, how deeply she wanted to refuse it. But she inhaled slowly, straightened her shoulders, and accepted the Sword of Gith from Akachi's lover.

As her fingers closed about the handle, a startling look of relief passed over her face. "Oh, thank Chauntea."

"Are you all right?" Gann asked, very aware of the sheer inadequacy of the question.

"It's not... it's complete, now. It recognises me... but it doesn't need me. I'm not part of it any more." Tarva fastened its scabbard to her belt as the Founder watched.

"Only one thing remains," the old woman said. "I can do nothing more for you... for him... save this: if I've earned your vengeance, take it."

Gann saw a thing then that he'd seen very rarely. Tarva gaped, completely taken off-guard. " _What?_ "

"If you would exact judgement for my evils," the Founder said, "go ahead. I acknowledge the justice of it."

"Oh, _no_. No." Tarva shook her head, and said again, "no."

Safiya's eyes were very wide. "I didn't think _anyone_ could forgive what w-she's done to you."

"I see nothing to forgive," Tarva said.

"Kidnapping, vivisection, imminent death, your soul rotting in the Wall of the Faithless, and an impossible quest the only chance to save yourself?"

"Even so." There was the faintest of smiles on Tarva's face. "If not for your actions, Founder, I would probably have never have set foot in Rashemen. I wouldn't have met Safiya, Okku, or Kaelyn. Or _Gann._ " Her smile strengthened as she looked at him, just for a moment. "Even if I wanted revenge... I could not raise a blade against Araman. Akachi would never let me harm you. More to the point, you're part of Safiya, and _I_ could never harm her."

She was, abruptly, entirely serious again. "If I had been in your place... I might have done the same thing. I _am_ in Akachi's, and I _will_."

Although she looked equally confused and concerned by Tarva's last sentence (and Gann felt rather the same way himself), the Founder said nothing about it. She embraced Safiya, and looked tenderly at Tarva, or at Akachi within her. "Go, then... and carry my love with you. Love is stronger than any punishment meted out by a mad god – let _that_ be Myrkul's legacy to the planes... that his cruelty _broke_ before mortal resolve."


	67. Again Sune

It was a small relief, as always, when the unremitting grey of the Shadow Plane gave way to the familiar colours and sounds of the backstage area of the Veil. It did mean that Okku was once more a multicoloured eyesore instead of being harmonious shadings of grey, but that, Gann considered, was a small price to pay.

Old Father Bear tilted his head. "So, little one. We have a direction. When do we go?"

"Tomorrow, I think," the half-elf said, a little hesitantly. "Unless anyone thinks otherwise?" They didn't. "Well. I expect everyone has a list of things they'd like to get done, but I'd like – if you don't mind – a moment to speak with each of you privately. I'll go and get us some rooms at the Sloop – it'll be a little quieter than staying with Magda. Come and find me when it suits you."

Okku beat him to it. "I will come with you, little one. If you must chatter away like a rook, I'd rather get it over with. I have business to attend before we leave."

"I thought as much," Tarva said, and shot Gann a glance before leaving with the bear.

"Interesting," Safiya commented, once she judged them out of earshot. "Something's up." She adjusted the dun hood that hid her scalp tattoos, and wrapped the matching robes carefully over her unmistakably Red Wizard clothing.

"Many things, I don't doubt," Gann said. He himself was hardly composed; there was simply too much to take in, so many revelations and so much urgency. On the word of a dead god and a woman who should long ago have died, they were going to travel to the Fugue Plane and challenge the Wall of the Faithless, to end a centuries-old curse and save Tarva...

He shook his head.

Safiya was regarding him curiously; surprisingly, so was Kaelyn. "I bet I could guess what you were thinking," the Red Wizard said as they crossed the Veil's empty stage. "This is insane."

"Not so," the Dove said, but refused to elaborate.

Gann pushed open the theatre door for them – well, he started it, and the bitterly cold gust of wind completed the task.

"Ugh." Safiya pulled her hood back into place. "Why would anyone choose to live in this climate?"

"Gannayev, I would speak with you," Kaelyn said softly.

"I've heard it said that there is a first time for everything," he said, closing the door behind them. "I never believed it before."

"I believe that's my cue to excuse myself," Safiya said, and did so, heading into Mulsantir's marketplace. The sturdy Rashemi townsfolk weren't about to let a little thing like an oncoming snowstorm ruin their trade. Gann watched her go, leaving him alone with the one member of their little group he had never felt capable of conversing easily with.

"Please, walk with me," Kaelyn said, seeming almost restless. "I am... I cannot find the word. I... I wish to speak of Tarva."

"There are few subjects I cherish more," Gann replied, and waited for her to get to the point.

"Yes..." the Dove murmured, and stared at him, the fierce wind ruffling her feathers. "Gannayev, it is those words she said to the Founder. 'I _am_ in Akachi's, and I _will_.' I did not understand them then, but now... I think... I think she spoke of _you._ She loves you, and you are, like Akachi's beloved, a Faithless soul."

"Yes," Gann said.

"Akachi waged his Crusade for justice – and for the soul of his lover. Tarva... she would do the same for you."

"She told me so," Gann admitted. "I don't – she – no –" he clamped his mouth shut before any more nonsense could fall out of it.

"I see," Kaelyn said. "This perturbs you; you know the monster Akachi became for his transgression, and you would not see such a fate befall Tarva. I thought that perhaps your thoughts might be dwelling on this matter, and I wished to... to help you." She looked at him, her black eyes unfathomable. "Gannayev, it is not so desperate as you fear. We go tomorrow to put an end to the Wall itself. We may not succeed – but I will _never_ stop trying." They had reached the temple now; Kaelyn reached out and touched the low wall that surrounded it, the priests' replica of the Wall of the Faithless. Her fingers traced the twisted, broken figure of a child tenderly.

"Even should I fail... Kelemvor is not as Myrkul was. He is cold, and he knows no mercy, but he is not cruel. He would not create a spirit-eater."

"Kaelyn! Sister!" the Stag's voice rang out, and Kaelyn's head snapped up.

"One moment, Efrem." She turned back to Gann. "You are less than reassured, I see. There is one more thing I would say to you, Gannayev: there is one sure way to save yourself from the Wall of the Faithless. It requires no change to the laws of the Planes, no gambles or sacrifices."

"Oh, and what is that?" He was already certain he was not going to care for whatever the cleric was going to say.

"Do not be Faithless," Kaelyn said, and slipped away.

Gann shook his head as her siblings – and the mute boy they'd rescued from ogres at Coveya Kurg'annis – swarmed her, and turned to walk back down the hill.

It really was cold, and he had lived in Rashemen all his life. The wind stung, and the scent of snow was in the air. The storm would be on them within hours – just after dark, probably. He quickened his steps.

There was too much going on, the stakes were too high – what had he to do with all this grand crusade and gods and souls? Nothing, except that Tarva was enmeshed in their mad schemes, and she was –

"Oof!"

\- Engrossed, and moving at quite a pace, he'd barged into the little group.

"Oh! Gannayev!"

Oh, no. He _knew_ that voice – and dealing with her was not something he wanted to do. Nevertheless, Gann squared his shoulders, composed his expression into one suitably remorseful, and said, "My apologies, Anya. I did not see you."

"That was evident," replied the much drier voice of Skyla Avolov, Anya's mentor. Gann sighed inwardly. Anya, Skyla, Janiik and Gabi... even the Ravens, who were perched on Gabi's shoulders and laughing at him. All the work he did arranging them to escort the girl to her grandmother, and she'd been headed to Mulsantir anyway?

" _You've been busy, shaman_ ," Hukhin greeted him. " _And presuming too much, again._ "

" _Naming your lover after us? A spirit-eater?"_ Myunni roused his feathers. " _We are not flattered."_

" 'Lover'? " Gabi turned to Anya, with a slightly triumphant look on her face. "See, I told you there was something there!"

Myunni snickered. _"You don't see the half of it, fledgling."_

"Indeed," Skyla agreed, studying Gann intently, and frowning as though she was displeased by what she saw. "Janiik, girls, would you excuse me, please? I need to have a word with Gannayev."

It was clearly his day for being corralled by women who wanted to talk about weighty, uncomfortable subjects. Until he was safely tucked away at the Sloop – with the door locked and barred – he would just have to grin and bear it. Fortunately, as soon as her group was safely away, Skyla Avolov got right to the point.

"The Dreamer's Heart," she said. "I never thought to see it again in my lifetime. I don't know whether I should congratulate you, or feel sorry for you."

"You sound as though you know something I don't," Gann said. Really, there was an awful lot of that going on lately. "Care to explain?"

"Oh. You don't know." The half-drow sighed. "Lord Okku didn't –"

"He said only that he knew it when he saw it. As, apparently, do you."

"I do," Skyla said. "My parents had it. It's difficult to forget... but this isn't really the place for this. I take it you were headed somewhere a little warmer, hagspawn?"

-0-0-0-0-0-

"You must have noticed some of the effects already," Skyla said, warming her hands on her mug of mulled wine, ignoring the suspicious gaze of the Sloop's bartender. "You will never truly be alone – or separate - again, either of you."

That... that sounded fine to him. Much more than fine. "So why would you feel sorry for me?"

The woman sighed. "The Dreamer's Heart is not like the Eye or the Voice. For one thing, it is much rarer. There are several reasons for this: first, it is never given to one person alone. It exists solely to bind two who are deeply in love. Second, it cannot given to those who do not already possess both the Eye and the Voice – and you know how rare they are."

"Two lovers whom the spirits have already blessed with both..." The conjunction could not be at all common.

"There are countless spirits who have the ability to grant the Eye or the Voice. Not so the Heart. According to my father, only the goddess Sune chooses who bears the Heart – and she does so only when there is genuine _need_ for it."

So very many questions... "Who is Sune?" and after a moment, "What sort of need?"

"The goddess of love. As for need..." Skyla took a long swallow of her wine before answering. "Gannayev. I am a half-drow." He shook his head, not understanding. "My father was a human cleric of Sune. He and his party were captured and enslaved in the Underdark."

Even he had heard something of the legendary atrocities committed by the Underdark drow, and the likely fate of anyone captured by them. Gann sipped his ale cautiously, decided its main ingredient was probably dead rat, and set it aside.

"My mother was the second daughter of House Ylentza, and thus, ambitious. She was also a dreamwalker, and she used her talent to enter her sisters' dreams and destroy them from within." Skyla smiled. "You can only imagine her surprise when a lowly jaluk – and a human to boot – dared to invade her dreams. He might have been a slave in the waking world, but there, he was her equal – or better. Surprise turned to fascination, and slowly, fascination became something more. Joined by the Dreamer's Heart, meeting in dreams, they made plans; she would find and free him, and they would leave for the surface together." Skyla fixed Gann with her wine-red gaze. "Do you know what that means for a drow? To abandon House and power, to leave her very world behind? Or for a slave in the Underdark, risking more than death in the hope that a female would rescue him?"

It was a purely rhetorical question; she continued her story after barely a breath.

"She had to travel much deeper into the Underdark to find him, but find him she did. His condition was... much as could be expected, and they were far from the surface. She guarded and protected him as he healed; as the months passed and she grew heavy with child, he did the same for her.

"You?" Gann asked.

Skyla nodded. "I was born only a few days before they reached the surface – far to the south of here. Well, the surface held its own dangers for them; few indeed are those who would trust a drow, even with my father to vouch for her, and the drow themselves are not well-adapted to life here. She longed for her own people at times, her own cities, and he missed the life he had led before."

"That does not sound promising."

"It wasn't," and now Skyla smiled. "But they lived in peace and love for many years. A human's lifespan is a good deal shorter than a drow's, you know, and when death took him, she was left on the surface as a member of a despised, feared race with her half-breed child. She told me that she had never regretted her choice; she could still feel his love, his _presence_ , through the Dreamer's Heart, as warm and real and living as on the first day they had loved each other."

"The Dreamer's Heart must be needed, you said."

"It was guide, and encouragement, and strength for both of them. Without it, he would never have been able to trust her entirely, and he would certainly have died down in the Underdark. On the other hand, drow politics would have brought an end to my mother sooner rather than later, but only the Heart and my father would ever have persuaded her to leave." Skyla set her empty mug down. "Nor, I think, would she have had the courage to remain on the surface after his death, even for me, if his love had not sustained her through the Heart."

"I... see." Well, not entirely, he didn't. He didn't doubt the half-drow's story, nor the importance of the role played by the Dreamer's Heart in it, but he was having trouble with some of the implications.

Skyla looked gravely at him. "You will always feel her with you. Given time, as you both grow accustomed to it, you will be able to sense something of the other's mood or emotions, perhaps even thoughts. If you have time enough..." Her voice was very gentle. "My Gabi said that Tarva is a – a spirit-eater."

Gann, still reeling, nodded mutely.

"I... I am sorry, Gannayev. That may be the reason this gift was given to you both. I cannot attempt to fathom Sune's mind, but as I understand it, at the very least, either your life or hers will depend on it. Probably yours; you know... you _must_ know that a spirit-eater cannot survive."

"We'll see," he said.

"You have a plan?"

"And a lot of determination," Gann told her. "I won't let –"

"Gann," Safiya's voice, a little unsteady, interrupted. He turned, to see her standing in the doorway, the dun hood shadowing her eyes. "Tarva's the third room on the right, if you're looking for her."

He rose from his chair. "If you'll excuse me."

Skyla nodded. "Good luck, Gannayev. I shall... I shall pray for both of you."

He hesitated, then said simply, "Thank you."


	68. Again Tarva and Gann

Tarva stood at the window, staring out at the docks, as Gann crossed the small room to her side. The boats moored there were rocking with the strengthening swell and the wind; the sailors scurried over them, preparing for the storm.

"Tarva," he said softly. She continued gazing into the distance, giving no sign that she'd heard him at all, or even knew he was there. He repeated her name, a little louder, and she blinked slowly, then turned to him.

"Gann. I'm sorry."

"Let me guess: you were miles away."

"No, just... preoccupied." Her face was pale and expressionless as she left the window and seated herself on one of the room's narrow cots, while Gann took the other. "But I'm glad you're here."

"Naturally," he answered, searching her face for the slightest response to his banter. "I have that effect on almost everyone."

" 'Almost' being the important word in that sentence," Tarva replied mechanically, and pressed on immediately. "Gann, I'm going to ask something of you now, and you're not going to like it."

Even her tone was ominous. "In that case, I make no promises."

Tarva inhaled slowly, her hands locked about each other, the knuckles white with tension. "Tomorrow, before dawn, we'll go to the Shadow Portal. We'll cross through, plumb the depths of Myrkul's Vault, open the black gate, and pass through it. To the Fugue Plane. The land of the dead."

"I am hardly so lacking in wit as to have forgotten this already. I even remember the next bit: we find your soul, pull it from the Wall – if we destroy it in the process, so much the better – and free you from the curse." He added gently, "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because I'm asking..." she stopped, shook her head. "Please, Gann, I – oh, gods, this is hard." She sat up straighter, echoing a long-ago dream where she spoke with just as much steel. "Gann. I want you to stay behind."

His response was instant and instinctive. "No."

"Gann..." and all the strength in her voice had been spent on forcing those first words out. "...please. I'm not – I'm not in a position to order you, and I wouldn't even if I were. But... I am _begging_ you. Stay here, in Rashemen. Where it's safe.

"Do you think I care for–" Gann found himself on his feet, stung, his voice raised and hard.

Then he choked back the rest of the accusation as he looked down at her, and saw her swipe angrily at her eyes. "Oh, my love." He sat down beside her, and wondered helplessly how you comforted someone when you couldn't even touch them.

"Damn it," Tarva muttered, and scrubbed her eyes again. "I wasn't going to do this." She took a short, sharp breath, and looked up at him. "Maybe you don't, but _I_ care for your safety. More than I can say. Listen to me."

"Always."

"If we succeed, I'll come back to you. You know I will." She sighed, and dropped her hands back into her lap. "If we don't... then I would – I would like to know that you're safe."

"I think you underestimate my ability to survive," Gann said. "I could almost be insulted."

Her eyes widened as she looked at him. "You don't understand," the half-elf said, not as condemnation or explanation, but as though she'd only just realised it. "You really don't understand at all."

"Then _make_ me!" He forgot about her curse as he seized her hands. "Tell me everything! Just don't ask that I wait, idle and useless, while you disappear off to the land of the _dead_ to battle for your very soul, because I won't do it."

Tarva freed her hands from his grasp, and pressed them to her eyes again. Her voice was weary, and almost defeated, when she finally spoke. "Gann... The Crusade will fail, just like the others. It _can't_ succeed."

"That's not what Kaelyn thinks."

"Kaelyn believes exactly what she wants to believe," Tarva said. "Tear down the Wall of the Faithless or remove just one soul from it... either way, it's a direct affront to Kelemvor. And there's no way to challenge a god in the very heart of his power and win. It just can't be done."

"Akachi did."

"Akachi only got as far as he did because Myrkul let him. Because Myrkul planned it that way. He killed the Founder to see how far his priest would go. He let Akachi tear her soul from the Wall because it amused him, and it gave him an excuse to create the spirit-eater. Akachi achieved _nothing_." Tarva stood abruptly and returned to the window. "Kelemvor is not like Myrkul. He has no reason to toy with us, to allow us any victory. More: he is guardian of the dead, and of the Wall, and... oh, Gann, he takes his duties seriously. What do you think he will do to those who challenge him?"

He knew much more, now, about the gods than he had ever thought possible. At their _best_ they were capricious. He had seen some of the cruelties they were capable of at first hand, and his imagination supplied several answers to her question. Some were unpleasant. Some were horrifying.

He understood why she had asked him to remain behind. But – "Why go at all?"

"You know – the Hunger. I can't... Gann." Her dark head bowed, forehead resting against the glass. When she found the words, they were simple and brutally honest. "I'm dying anyway. I refuse to go down without a fight. And I refuse to take you with me."

"Brave one," Gann said, and joined her at the window, his hand _almost_ brushing against hers. "Don't fear for me."

"Can't help it," she replied, quiet and sad. "I don't think you understood a single word I said."

"Oh, I understood. But it's your turn to listen to me, now." She looked at him, then inclined her head. "Once, I was but a half-hag, a half-man, a half-soul. If I permitted the one I loved to go into such danger while I walked Rashemen, I would have no soul left at all."

"I am technically soulless," Tarva pointed out. "It's not so bad."

Perhaps that had been a misstep. "I promised you," he said. "Everything in my power to free you from this curse. How can I keep that oath if you are Planes away from me?"

"You've already kept your promise, Gann. I don't think any of us have enough power to truly affect anything in Kelemvor's realm –"

"Safiya already called me useless," he interrupted, a small smile on his lips. "Don't you start."

"Against a god in his own place, we're all useless."

"For someone with ears like yours, you are doing a woeful job of listening."

His gentle, almost playful rebuke surprised her; one corner of her mouth tugged up as she apologised. "I'll try harder."

"Do so." He watched a ship come flying in, driven by the storm winds, and tried to find the words that would convince her – not that he would be left behind even if the half-elf disagreed. It simply was not going to happen. "I _will_ come with you tomorrow. I _will_ be at your side as you lead Kaelyn's Crusade for her, and I _will_ gladly dare the worst your god of the dead can throw at us. Because I love you, and I will not be parted from you. Not even by your will."

She shook her head, slowly, sadly.

He kept talking. "I don't care if our chances of success are slim – "

"- non-existent –" she muttered.

"Perhaps so. Perhaps not," Gann said, and told her of his encounter with Skyla Avolov. He repeated what the half-drow had told him of the Dreamer's Heart, and laid heavy emphasis on the part about the goddess Sune.

It caught her attention, as he'd known it would. "You think that, whatever reason she had for joining us in this way –"

"- it has something to do with the Crusade, or the spirit-eater. Yes."

She was silent for a moment. "Gann, you don't even believe she exists."

"I think, at this point, you may safely say that I know the gods exist. I will even – albeit reluctantly – concede that they are powerful. I still see no reason to worship them."

"Even the W-"

" _Especially_ the Wall of the Faithless." He drew a deep breath, realising that she'd successfully changed the subject. "Be that as it may, Tarva, I will go with you tomorrow. Do not deny me this."

"Gann, _please_..."

"Tarva." His voice was low and forceful. " _There is nothing left for me here._ " Her head snapped up; her eyes searched his. He nodded, for he meant it entirely. "You do not believe you will return from the Fugue Plane. Where does that leave me? I cannot return to the life I used to lead. It was always empty and aimless, but I knew no other way it could be. Now I do – knowing you, loving you has taught me much better. But if I were to lose you... I do not see how I could build a new life without you."

Tarva's eyes shone with tears that she neither hid nor checked.

"So I will go with you to the land of the dead, and we will face whatever waits there. We may survive. We may fall. Either way, we will be together. That is all I ask."

Finally, she nodded. "As you wish," Tarva whispered, and the small susurration should not have been able to carry so much grief, or much desperation.

"Thank you," he murmured, equally soft.

They stayed there as the sun set and light left the world.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Safiya motioned them over to the little table tucked in the corner of the Sloop furthest from the caterwauling half-orc bard. "Let me guess," she said to Tarva in quite her usual tones, ignoring the half-elf's reddened eyes. "You couldn't talk Gann out of coming with you either."

"Not a chance," he replied, and followed Tarva in taking a seat.

"Have you seen Kaelyn?" the weapon master asked.

"Don't waste your breath," Safiya said. "You'll never talk her out of her Crusade."

"No," Tarva said. "It wasn't just about that."

"She was with her siblings at the temple of Kelemvor," Gann told them. "I suspect she'll stay with them tonight."

Tarva nodded. "Just a moment," she said, and went off to negotiate for some food.

Safiya leaned forward, her eyes alight with curiosity. "Gann, I've got to ask... was Tarva _crying_?"

"Yes," he answered shortly. "People do, you know. Or do Red Wizards have their tear ducts removed at birth?"

"Don't be foolish," Safiya said. "Nobody shows signs of magic talent at birth. You're accepted for study at an Academy at the age of five at the youngest, you don the red robe for the first time, _then_ they shave your scalp and remove your tear ducts." She added, more seriously, "Is Tarva all right?"

"Define 'all right'," Gann repeated the words Tarva had used to reply to that question before. "She's... so tired, and so desperate. Safiya... she doesn't think we're coming back."

"The odds aren't good," Safiya said. "You must have known that. But I do think there is a chance – "

Tarva returned to the table with three bowls of stew. "I know, I know, it's not ideal, but it's either this or what appears to be burnt dog. And since I saw a hoof in the stew pot, this has at least traces of genuine cow in it."

"It'll do," Safiya said, accepting her bowl from Tarva, and trying a cautious spoonful as the half-elf passed another bowl to Gann. "In fact, it's surprisingly good."

"I wouldn't know," Tarva said, taking her seat. "I can't taste much nowadays."

"Ah, so that's how you came by your remarkable forbearance for Kaelyn's cooking," Gann noted. "I have been admiring your restraint and tact on the subject; now, learning that you genuinely had no idea how terrible it was... well, I have lost all respect for you." He was rewarded by the slight twitch of Tarva's lips. "And," he added, "I believe I am jealous."

Safiya laughed. "You are ridiculous, Gann."

"In all the best ways," he retorted smoothly.

The Red Wizard shook her head – then adjusted the hood again. "Really, who would have ever thought we'd end up here? Who'd have seen this coming? It sounds like a bad joke: 'A Red Wizard, a hagspawn and a spirit-eater all walk into a tavern...' "

"It's the kind of story I'd expect Grobnar to tell," Tarva agreed, then corrected herself, "- Grobnar would have told."

"I just want to say," Safiya said, laying aside her spoon, her dark eyes wide and serious, "Tarva, Gann; whatever the cost may be in the end... it's been worth it. I am glad to have met you, I have enjoyed travelling with you, and I will be proud to challenge the Fugue Plane with you... my - my friends."

"Before we get all maudlin and start weeping into our ale," Gann said, "- which, given it tastes like dead rat, is probably safer than drinking it - and I suppose there are worse ways to spend the last evening before war –"

"There certainly are," Tarva said. "But not many."

" – still, I'll echo our dear Safiya's sentiment. It is easy to forget that there are people worth knowing in these lands, that kindness, friendship and trust are not merely tales told by the wind. Certainly, when I was the dreamer in his cell at Mulsantir, I would never have dreamed of knowing such treasures in my life." He looked at them in turn – his beloved and his friend. "A strange turn in the road, to be sure, but an important one. Safiya, _Tarva_... thank you."

"Whatever comes," Tarva said simply, "it has been a pleasure."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TL:DR? Tarva asked Gann to stay safe in Rashemen instead of joining the Crusade, and our favourite hagspawn responded with a rousing rendition of "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)".


	69. Again Tarva

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say? Sexy Gann is sexy. Tautological statement is tautological; in 97.8% of instances the words 'Gann' and 'sexy' are interchangeable. Flustered Tarva is fun. And awkward. All a nice break between angst and epic finale.

It had been, Gann reflected as he pulled off his armour, a good night. The three of them had tacitly agreed to forget about the Crusade; everything that needed to be said had been. They had simply enjoyed each other's company.

Kaelyn had appeared long enough to talk with Tarva, but had decided to return to her siblings for the night. As Tarva had said, it was hardly surprising; as Safiya had retorted, it was just as well. Even in the brief amount of time she'd spent with them, it was clear that only one thing was on her mind, and it was the only subject of conversation the rest of them were eager to avoid.

Finally, Tarva had suggested, or more accurately, decreed, that they had all better turn in for the night. She had bade him good-night at his door, in tones that had Safiya coughing tactfully and turning away. It had seemed wrong when the door closed, leaving her on one side and him on the other.

The rising storm was howling outside, but the dying fire in the grate had heated the little room to a more than comfortable temperature. It was a nice change from many of their nights on the road, but perhaps just a little too warm. He tugged off his shirt, and tossed it over the back of a chair.

Yes. Much better.

"Gann?" the soft voice was accompanied by an equally soft knock on the door.

Tarva, of course. He wasn't sure why. The usual reason a woman would come to his room at night was, rather depressingly, unlikely in the extreme. He opened the door for her, and leant against the frame. "I hope you're not here to try and argue me out of coming with you again. Isn't one humiliating defeat enough for you?"

Her eyes were very wide, and her mouth was open as though to answer his question, but moments passed and she didn't say anything.

"Tarva?" Then he followed her line of sight, and began to grin, uncontrollably, when it terminated at his bare chest. Well, well, well. "That _is_ good to know."

She made a small, incoherent sound.

"While I am more than happy to stand here and be ogled, particularly by you, I suspect that you did not knock on my door merely to enjoy the scenery." He paused a moment, noted the lack of response, and snapped his fingers just beside her ear.

She jumped, and then looked up at him. Rather sheepishly. "Ah... sorry. I didn't – I mean – I should have –" Tarva stopped, gathered her breath and her composure, and tried again. "That is, Gann, you're..." He expected her to finish with something like 'half-naked', or perhaps 'looking disgustingly smug', but she gave an odd sort of shrug and said simply, "... magnificent."

His grin widened an extra inch. "I know."

"Gann-the-Incorrigible," she said, and shook her head. "Please, may I come in?"

"Of course," he stood aside to let her pass, and closed the door behind her. "Shall I put my shirt back on?" he added, and watched the slight check in her movements, the tiniest of pauses before she answered.

"Your choice." Tarva perched herself on the chair and held her hands out to the embers of the fire.

"I think I shall go without, considering that you're currently sitting on it – and it's too warm in here anyway." Not for her, it seemed; she huddled in front of the fire, just as she had when they journeyed through the Ashenwood. Gann stood behind her chair, resting his hands on its back. "So cold? I had thought you better adjusted to Rashemen's winter by now."

"Ah, Gann." She turned her head and tried to smile at him, a weary, faltering attempt that died as soon as it touched her lips. "I'm just terrified."

"I can't imagine why," Gann replied lightly, watching the fire flicker over her shoulder. "Surely the woman who destroyed the King of Shadows and the remnants of a god of death – not to mention that she wakened love in a heartless hagspawn – has nothing left to fear? Particularly when Gann-of-Dreams walks by her side?"

"You'd think so," Tarva said, "but it doesn't seem to be the case. I'm scared out of the few wits I have left, the Hunger's so strong now, and there are bits of Akachi left that clutter up everything... I can barely hear myself think." She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and seemed to pull herself together. "I'm sorry, Gann. You didn't need to hear all that; I did actually have a purpose in coming here, and it wasn't to babble at you."

"Oh," he said quietly, "what a shame. It wasn't merely my stunning good looks, sharp wit and scintillating company that drew you to my door?"

"Well," and now a smile did flicker in her eyes, "it is a little like that. We are going to attempt several horribly dangerous things tomorrow, most of which seem unlikely to succeed. That's not the sort of thing, I think, you should go into with regrets or might-have-beens."

"You believe this is farewell."

"I hope not," she answered, "I just know that it _might_ be – and so, if you don't mind, I'd like to spend this night with you."

Surely she didn't mean – "That is rather an... ambiguous statement," Gann said. It took a moment for _his_ meaning to sink in, and then, to his delight, Tarva actually blushed. He couldn't help chuckling. "So shy, my love?"

And she spluttered. "Ah – I – _yes_ ," she finally managed. Her cheeks were still scarlet as she looked up at him. "I, I w- but –"

"But we can both recognise monumentally bad timing when we are its victims." He bent down to murmur the next words beside her pointed ear; her dark hair stirred with his breath. "It will not always be so."

She was silent, for an endless moment, and then said, equally softly, "I will... I will hold you to that, Gann-of-Dreams."

"I am happy to be held," he said, and stood. "And that is one more reason why we shall surely triumph. Not even your gods could be so cruel as to tear us asunder now."

"You truly think so? Even after meeting Myrkul?" Tarva shook her head. "But I shall ask Chauntea to intercede with Sune for us; Kelemvor is not unkind, they say..."

"I am not depending on their goodwill," Gann told her. "I have an oath to keep – and should all of our plans and dreams be defeated, still we will be together. I ask no more." And he added a rakish smile. "I merely hope."

"Well," she said, "I don't know how I'd live with myself if I disappointed you." Her lips twisted into that familiar, bitter half-smile. "Of course, _living_ at all may be a problem."

"None of that," Gann said. "Please, my love." Slowly, she nodded. "Now, you were saying something about staying here tonight?" If she preferred to steal his bed than sleep in her own, who was he to deny her?

"I-if you don't mind," the half-elf said. "And if I won't disturb you."

"Never." Gann motioned towards the bed. "All yours. I've spent many a night on less comfortable surfaces than a clean wooden floor."

"Oh, no. No, Gann." She stood, turning her back to the fire. "There's no rest in me tonight. I'd just – if I'm going to be awake all night, I'd rather be with you. Even if you're sleeping... gods, that sounds stupid."

"Only a little." He understood, and because he did, he pulled his face into a very serious expression. "But it will not be easy for me to sleep while you are here. I will need your assistance."

"Of course."

He batted his eyelashes at her. "Sing me a lullaby."

She stared at him. Then her lips twitched, and that precious spark of mischief flashed into her eyes. "I told you, I'm no bard. I make noises like pigs in an abattoir; you would have nightmares." She paused a moment, then added, "I can dance, though. I just need five sickle blades and two daggers..."

"That sounds more like warfare."

"It's a West Harbour thing," she replied, with a shrug. "I was one of the best in the village, when I was a girl. Ah, well. I'm desperately out of practice, and I doubt it'd help you sleep, even if we had all that hardware to hand. I think the best I can do for you is recite some of Kana's maintenance reports."

"I think that sounds deadly dull," Gann said, and climbed into bed. "Simply speak; your voice is music enough for me."

"Will it – will it bother you if I pray?" Tarva asked as she placed her chair at the foot of his bed.

"If you wish," Gann yawned, pulling the covers up to his ears. "Wouldn't you rather talk to me?"

"I would rather you _slept,"_ she said. "If I talk to you, you'll feel compelled to answer." The half-elf paused, one corner of her mouth curling up. "But I can do both; in fact, I'd like to."

"I have no idea... what you're talking... about," Gann said. He was apparently more tired than he'd thought; not only was his voice not cooperating fully, but his eyelids were also starting to slide closed. In one glimpse, Tarva was still adjusting her chair; in the next, she stood beside the bed, looking down at him with unmasked tenderness, not quite hiding her deep and abiding fear.

"It's a very old tradition," her soft voice sounded out of the darkness. "A Chauntean blessing. If you'll accept it... it's only a prayer, a form of words; you know I have no magic." A time of silence, then she murmured, "I'll take that as a yes."

Her voice fell into a measured cadence as she spoke the words over him. "May the glad sun shine on you and give you strength. May the soft rain fall on you and grant you peace. May the hail and the storm fall far from your door, the fire and the frost pass you by. May Chauntea's kindness be upon you, from now into eternity."

It was... it was a pleasant thought, and Gann let it carry him into sleep.

... in dreaming, he stands again at the shore of the Lake of Dreams. A blue, glowing figure is flying from the Sunken City; its slow, silent wingbeats carry it in a graceful arc towards him. He recognises the bird as Geiborah when the owl flies over his head and perches on the lowest branch of a nearby tree.

"Hail, Gannayev-of-Dreams."

"Hail, Geiborah Moon-Winged," Gann returns the formal greeting to his first and most dedicated teacher among the telthors. "What brings you here?"

The owl fixes him with round, bright eyes and clicks his beak. "I heard rumours on the wind. That the spirit-eater had woken once again, and walked the land of Rashemen in strange guise, that my protégé had helped her defeat my king, and that both travelled with her. That the Ashenwood was cleansed, the Wood Man strengthened. That the Slumbering Coven was no more." Geiborah swivels his head in a way no living owl could manage. "Hukhin and Myunni convinced me of the truth of the rumours. You were very rude to them. Did I not teach you better than that?"

He had forgotten, Gann realises, just how long-winded the telthor was. "Y-"

"And now you stand once more at your mother's lake. I had intended to find you soon in any case; to see you here is a pleasant surprise. And bearing the Dreamer's Heart? It seems that you are in need of more tuition."

"I don't understand -" Gann says.

"That is why you require my teaching. Pay attention: I heard rumours –"

"No," Gann interrupts before the owl can repeat everything he's said. "Your meaning was quite clear, I have been told of the Dreamer's Heart, and the Ravens already made their displeasure obvious. What I don't understand is what you're doing _here._ "

"I came to see what was left of Coveya Kurg'annis." Geiborah clicks his beak again. "The ruins stand empty and desolate. No breath stirs those dark halls; no petitioners wait beyond the gates to hear the wisdom of the hags. You have ended an age, Gannayev."

"And my mother?" Gann voices the question before he realises this is truly what has drawn him back here.

"Yvae," the owl says and hoots softly, a sorrowful sound. "I am sorry... she is gone." Geiborah spreads his wings and drifts down, silently as a flake of ash, to land on Gann's shoulder. "I do not know whether she survives, only that I did not see her within the ruins."

She had said that they would meet only that once... still, he had hoped. His mother had known, even before he had, that he loved Tarva. Females of all species take delight in saying 'I told you so'; he had wanted to grant her that small pleasure. And just... just to see her again.

"You knew," Gann says, as the moonlit shimmers of the lake are disturbed by the coiling of a black tentacle. "Who she was. Who I am. Why didn't you tell me?"

"It was judged that you were not ready to hear it." The owl pulls gently at a strand of Gann's hair, an old expression of affection. "But I would have told you, if you had ever asked me. I have watched over her; she was not lucid enough to speak to me, but I listened to her words. Didn't you ever wonder how you came by your name?"

Out of old habit, and not because he feels particularly warm toward Geiborah at the moment, Gann reaches up to scratch under the warm breast feathers. "I should return."

"Wait," and Gann has never heard the telthor sounds so uncertain. "My lord Okku says that... Your mate... do you truly believe she can end this curse?"

"If it can be done at all," Gann tells him. "None of us are sure, but I refuse to believe that –" words fail him without warning.

"Oh, child," the owl sighs, and launches himself from Gann's shoulder. "I will see you again soon."

"Perhaps," Gann says, as the glowing figure fades away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never tell an owl in a videogame that you didn't understand something, especially if he does funny things with his head.


	70. The Crusade

There were four of them at the gate to the Shadow Plane, in the bitter cold before dawn. Each biting gust of wind brought another flurry of snowflakes with it, illuminated solely by Kaelyn's light.

"He should have been here by now," Safiya muttered. "I say if the bear doesn't show in the next five minutes, we leave him behind."

"Uh, Mithtreth –" The homunculus had apparently managed to get his clay tongue stuck on a lamp post. Safiya sighed and muttered a few syllables; a small flame kindled at the end of her finger as she went to unstick him.

"It's not like Okku," Tarva agreed, shivering violently and trying to repress it. The sight decided Gann.

"Give me the key, Tarva." She tilted her head, as if confused, but fished out the black stone that opened the Shadow gates and tipped it into his hand. "You are turning a pale shade of blue, my love, and it does not suit you. Leave that skin tone to those of us who were born with it. Is that not correct, priestess?" Kaelyn wasn't even listening to him. How sad.

Gann held the stone out to the invisible rupture in the fabric of the Planes, and summoned the gate to life. "Let's get you somewhere warmer, Tarva." He placed the stone on the ground, and nudged it with his boot until it sat precisely on the threshold of the gate, holding it open. "Okku can catch up to us when he feels like it."

"The hathran will not care for you leaving this danger unattended," Kaelyn said softly.

"If I cared what the hathrans thought, you would not have found me sitting in one of their cells," Gann pointed out as Safiya pulled Kaji through the portal. The Dove followed them, the Sword of Gith strapped between her wings.

"Tarva..." he asked, as she approached the gate, "why does Kaelyn have your sword?"

She stopped. "It's not my sword. I don't want it – I never wanted it. Kaelyn does. It seemed... fitting." Then the half-elf shrugged. "Besides, I'm hardly better with a sword than you are. I'll stick with the scythe I can actually use." Her teeth started to chatter on the last words; he raised his eyebrows in mild rebuke, then followed her through to the Shadow Plane.

There was no wind, no snow here, only an even temperature that was neither warm nor cool, just as all colours were replaced with grey. The dead, unechoing silence surrounded them; without a word, Kaelyn started up the hill towards Myrkul's Vault.

"She's not wasting any time, is she?" Safiya observed mildly.

"We don't have a great deal to spare," Gann answered, and hurried after her. Tarva and Safiya fell into step beside him.

The Vault was empty; even the ghostly scribes had dissipated without Myrkul's power to sustain. Strangely, the place seemed more eerie without the sound of their scratching quills. Gann shook his head. More haunted now that the ghosts were gone? What nonsense he was thinking.

They made the final turn to the top of the stairs, looking down into the room where the black gate waited for them, and there Tarva sat down to wait for Okku. Gann took a place by her side, Safiya leaned against a wall, and Kaelyn stood, her back to them, eyes fixed on the gate, the Sword of Gith in her hands, wings spread to their fullest extent. The oppressive sense of _wrong_ exuded by the gate spread silence through the room... not that any of them were in the mood for idle prattle.

"Safiya..." Tarva said, after a time, "you are certain?"

The Red Wizard sighed. "Tarva, we did this to death last night. You can't change my mind now. Besides, a jaunt to the Fugue Plane should prove... academically stimulating."

Tarva nodded slowly, and her gaze fell on him. She didn't say much, just "Gann... please."

"No," he said simply. "I think we deserve a happy ending, don't you? That is _my_ dream. We shall go and save each other, and return with a tale of how two lovers braved death itself."

"If only," she murmured, and raised her head. "Kaelyn. You're ready for this?"

"Completely," the cleric replied, not even turning around to give her answer. "I have been waiting for th-"

"Hush," Tarva held up a hand, spring to her feet. "Does anyone hear that?" Gann heard nothing, but there was something else approaching, a familiar whisper at the back of his mind. He said as much, and saw Tarva swallow convulsively as she sensed it growing stronger – a veritable flood of spirits.

"What is it?" Safiya asked, alarmed. "Not Okku?"

"Gann," Tarva forced the words out, her hands curled into fists. "I – I _need_ -"

He nodded as he summoned an elemental. The spirit-eater burst from her and reached for it; as the Hunger tore the creature to pieces, the sound of hooves and paws on stone reached their ears; by the time the corridor started to glow blue, the Hunger was disappearing within her flesh once again.

She looked almost steady on her feet when Okku appeared, his teeth bared. "Sorry, little one. It took longer than I expected to muster them – but we are here."

"What?"

Following in Okku's wake came wave after wave of telthors, streaming past Okku, past Gann and Kaelyn to gather before the black gate. Geiborah was among the first, flying straight to Gann and landing on a piece of nearby architecture as the shaman simply gawked at the assembling host. The army that had besieged Mulsantir was as nothing compared to this.

"Hail, Gannayev-of-Dreams. I said I'd see you soon."

All the strongest and oldest, the brightest and most shining spirits of Rashemen were gathered here. Spirits he had only glimpsed in dreams stood taller than the main body of the horde, surrounded by their lesser kin - Tyrsell King-Stag, Shusha of the snow-cats, Nakata's pack, led now by her daughter Raksha, Kito-Tai and Reyn among the foxes; notable solely because he was the only one of his kind there, that unpleasant badger spirit who protected Mulsantir's berserker lodge... even Gythe and Merelde, greatest of the othlor, leading an detachment of lesser hathran, berserkers, and a few vremyonni.

And the birds filled the air; Geiborah's kin, and Hukhin and Myunni, of course. The eagle, Audax Farsight, his wingspan wider than Kaelyn's...

Such an army had never been gathered before. The room was awash with blue, ghostly light; even Safiya's red robe lost its vivid hue and looked black. It was almost beyond comprehension. Kaelyn's eyes were wide with jubilation that so many were coming to make one with her cause; Safiya just looked overwhelmed. Gann knelt to the bear-god, something he had never done in months of travelling together. "Lord Okku, the honour you do us is beyond words."

The pale eyes looked steadily at him, and the furry head inclined minutely. They both knew, even if the others did not, what such a gathering could cost. Should they fall... Rashemen would be left unprotected for ages to come.

Even in the spectral light of the telthors, Tarva was very pale. "Okku, no. This... this is..."

"Accept our aid, spirit-eater," the bear-god rumbled. "Every one of us is here of our own choice. Because we believe in you. We believe that you will be the one to end the curse and free our land. We believe you will save us from the tyranny of the dead god's wrath." A massive cry went up from the spirit-army, torn from every throat at once, a cry of affirmation and of hope. Okku spoke only once the uproar died down. "You will need an army to challenge the land of the dead. We are yours, little one. We _will not_ be turned away. Now, open the gate, and let us go!"

"I... I cannot deny that this is your fight," Tarva said, "if that is your choice. And my lord Okku... thank you."

Kaelyn nodded, and the telthors parted for her as she approached the gate, the Sword of Gith in her hand. Tarva, Gann, Safiya and Okku followed after her. Tarva closed her eyes, the strain showing on her narrow face, as Kaelyn bent and slid the silver sword into the waiting lock.

The gate trembled... and parted.

"Come, my children! We go to war!" Okku roared, and barged through. The telthors streamed after him, a near-endless river of light. Kaelyn followed on their end, and Safiya after her. After an exchanged glance that was more eloquent than words, Tarva and Gann stepped over the threshold together.

-0-0-0-0-0-

To call it the Fugue Plane was to render it innocuous, one plane among many. It was the land of the dead, with all that implied, all the implicit terrors of that phrase lying just beneath its dull, grey surface. The living were unwelcome here, and the place told them so with every passing moment, smothering them with its apathetic weight. The grey city, surrounded by the Wall of the Faithless, waited for them.

So did a disparate group of beings. Okku was leading his army a little further away from the gate, giving Tarva some precious space and relief; three figures were moving towards them. Their leader seemed to be a man who resembled Kaelyn, save in two important aspects. First, he was much taller – better than twice Tarva's height – and carrying a flaming sword of equally huge proportions. Secondly, his wings were not white, but dark and ashen. It seemed... unsettling, and Gann could not remember why it concerned him.

"We have waited long for you, Akachi," the celestial said, genuflecting to Tarva. "It is time we finished this."

Tarva said something in reply; Gann didn't catch it. Strange as the sight of the solar kneeling to a half-elf was – his head was still far above hers – it was the second of the figures, and the largest, which held him fascinated. He had never seen a dragon before, and he hadn't expected it to be so very beautiful, shining vividly blue and gold even in the monotonous grey light of the land of the dead. Ivory talons, teeth and horns suggested that the creature was as deadly as it was lovely to behold.

"Sey'ryu," Tarva said, with quiet certainty. Now, Gann remembered that dream the Coven had shown them, the dream of Akachi's lieutenants; this was the time it had presaged. "You are here to repay your debt to Akachi."

The dragon bent her massive head. "I will hold the gate for you and force the militia to divide their forces." She exhaled a long breath that smelt like a brewing thunderstorm. "You failed before I could fulfil my promise last time, Akachi. Don't do it again." She stalked away, surprisingly light on her feet, and sat down on her haunches nearer the gate. The very tip of her long tail twitched, like a cat watching a mousehole. Safiya seemed equally fascinated by the dragon, and followed her; Kaelyn stood watching the city's gate, still and utterly focused.

The last of Akachi's lieutenants approached, and he was no less strange than the other two, if he was smaller. A skull, shaped like a man's, with two immense gemstones set in the eye-sockets, floated nearly a foot off the ground. They had met Zoab, the... the _Fallen_ angel (Gann remembered now), and Sey'ryu; this, then, was Rammaq. He would have been intimidating, if Gann had not already seen Tarva destroy Myrkul, a much larger skull and one who had _been_ a god, not merely a demilich who hoped to become one.

"I am not Akachi," Tarva told them. "There are but... fragments left of him. I carry the cursed remnants of his soul; Kaelyn the Dove, leader of the Second Crusade, bears his sword and his desire to save the souls of the Wall."

"You are all that is left of our leader; we will follow you. We await but the order to attack," Zoab said after only a moment's reflection. "This is our plan: our forces are poised at key points along the Wall, to create a diversion and spread the defenders' forces thin. Within the city, we must reach the Basilica of Lost Hope and silence the Voice of Kelemvor, he who speaks the god's doom upon the souls. The main battleground is Eternity's End, the region around Kelemvor's Temple and the Crystal Spire itself."

"It is also where I will find the tomes that will grant me godhood," the demilich Rammaq interjected, "and you will find the Codex of the Dead, and the location of your soul. It is guarded by the Scrivener, who will not emerge from the Temple until the situation is dire." The large sapphires in the eye sockets glinted. "Help me gain the power I seek, and I will lure him out for you."

"If we strike down the Voice, it will be as a direct blow to Kelemvor himself. That should be our priori-"

A flash of light interrupted what was clearly an argument they'd had before, and Zoab spun to face it, flaming sword readied to strike.


	71. Again The Betrayer

"Wait, celestial," came the familiar hoarse voice of Ammon Jerro. "Don't be so quick to judge. Despite my choice of servants, you will find that I am on your side."

"You travel with demons and devils," Zoab said, loathing in every weighted syllable.

The warlock did indeed. Gann recognised the towering forms of a pair of pit fiends, and then realised he knew the individuals. Thael-ka and Oronock had held Ammon's soul, and now they were paying for it in his service. There were other, stranger creatures – comely, half-naked women with leathery wings, or black-feathered ones; a score of mephits; ugly masses of flesh on stumpy legs, surrounded by faint green miasmas; a balor demon; and, next to Ammon, an unassuming bluish man in robes, who was, for no clear reason, the most terrifying of them all.

"You are far from Celestia yourself," Ammon retorted, amused. "And _you_ have a demilich. Which of us is keeping more fitting company?"

"Stop baiting the solar, Ammon," Tarva said, going to greet her old companion. Gann went with her. "Zoab, I vouch for him. He is here to... repay old debts."

The celestial sheathed his sword, and jerked his head in a gesture halfway between an abrupt bow and a grudging nod. "I will await your command," he said, and went to confer with Rammaq.

"You are certain you wish to do this?" Tarva asked the old warlock. "You know as well as I do how it is likely to end."

"I have many debts that I will be required to pay eternally. The possibility of settling this one while I live is one that brings some small comfort." Ammon scratched at his beard, looking up at the Wall, and at the grey city. His eyes were distant and calculating. "I must remain here outside the Wall. I am of little use to you without my servants, and they have... prior agreements. They would be freed of my bindings should they set foot inside the city."

"So you will hold the gate?" Tarva asked. Gann noted how carefully she avoided looking at the bluish man... he didn't blame her. He was ducking the gaze of those balefire eyes himself.

"Yes," Ammon said. "I will bind more fiends here and defend this position until you meet your goal. Or until I fall." The man beside him smiled a little at that. Somehow it gave the impression that he'd just licked his lips in anticipation of a fine meal.

"Sey'ryu - the dragon - will help," Tarva told him. "Ammon... thank you. I will – I will _try_."

"I know," the warlock said, and grasped Tarva's shoulders, looking intently at her. "Be careful, girl." He released her as swiftly as he'd seized her, and marched off; his band of devils and demons followed him.

Save the man in robes, who stared at the half-elf until she acknowledged him. "Mephasm."

"Tarva El-Auri," he replied, in a low, deliberate voice, as mesmerising as a flame flicking in a grate. "I expected to see you here."

"Why would you expect anything like that?" She almost seemed composed, but Gann knew her far too well to believe it.

"There was an... arrangement with the Red Woman. You have met the intermediaries," the man (if man he truly was, and Gann doubted it) glanced at the pair of pit fiends that trailed after Ammon Jerro with a flash of disgust. "Their incompetency is _regrettable_... but I digress. On occasion, she would bargain for something more than our arrangement allowed; some years ago, she requested that we find someone of... suitable character and strength to survive joining with the spirit-eater, and to end the curse. Her payment was... adequate," again, that little smile, "and so I permitted myself to be summoned and bound by Ammon Jerro."

"So _you_ are responsible for this."

"Not as you are thinking, hagspawn," the burning eyes fixed on him. It was uncomfortable. "I believed that Ammon Jerro was the appropriate vessel... but he was far too focused on the threat posed by the King of Shadows, and ultimately proved himself inferior when first the silver sword was shattered, and again when your lover defeated him in his own sanctum."

"That was _Shandra's_ victory," Tarva said, her voice shaking slightly.

"And she was your tool, your follower. You led her, and used her correctly, and so it was your victory."

"She was my _friend_ ," the half-elf spat out the words, then shook her head violently. "Never mind. You will never understand. You decided that I would serve Nefris's purpose and told her of me. It is because of you that I am here."

"That is so."

Tarva nodded, a short, sharp little gesture, and pointed towards Sey'ryu and Jerro. "Fine. If you are still bound, go make yourself useful. If you are not, I would prefer it if you pursued your twisted agendas somewhere else. I have a curse to end."

Mephasm laughed, a sound devoid of any mirth whatsoever, and went. The baatezu cringed back from him.

"Tarva?" Gann asked quietly, a question that meant very little, except that he could see her shaking, and her face was white and bloodless.

"I hate pit fiends," she said, apparently as explanation. "And Mephasm... maybe it's just the polymorph, but –"

"Tarva!" Safiya called. "Gann, we've got company!"

The gates of the grey city were slowly swinging open, allowing a small party to exit. Under a limp white flag (no wind, here, to allow it to fly) they waited.

Tarva caught up to Akachi's generals, Gann in her wake. "Kelemvor hides in his Crystal Spire and sends False souls as emissaries," Zoab said. "To parley, perhaps to demand that we turn away and leave. Perhaps they will even attempt to corrupt and divide us. I trust there is no chance of that?"

"None," Kaelyn said. "We are set on this path; there is no need to speak to them at all."

Tarva looked at the Dove, and shook her head. "Kaelyn, I'm going to talk with them. It's hardly polite to ignore a parley."

"This is war. Manners should be the least of your concerns," the half-celestial answered, her voice unchanged from its usual serene tones.

"It's not war yet," Tarva said, and left before Kaelyn could say another word. Kaelyn's mouth dropped open, just for an instant, and then she hurried after Tarva. Safiya raised her eyebrows at Gann; he shrugged, and the two of them followed. He noticed Okku and Ammon drifting after them.

"..J-Jorin?" The Dove sounded, for the first time ever, uncertain of her ground. "But you -"

"Yes, Kaelyn. Me, and all the rest of the Sleeping Brothers. Your Crusade was cut short before it could march... along with our lives."

Another False soul spoke. "We followed you once. But we can allow you to come no farther, Kaelyn. You must turn from Kelemvor's citadel or you shall join us in death."

"I will not turn away," Kaelyn said softly. "If you remembered the goals you served in life, you would not stop me."

Jorin stepped forward. "We _died_ because of you!"

"Not all of us," said a burly man, who was watching Tarva carefully. "Do you not remember me, your Bittersmith? I forged weapons for your Crusade, Akachi, and I guarded your back when you tore the red woman for the Wall."

"Don't waste your breath, Halal," an elf woman said, just as bitterly as Jorin had. "Oh, that's right, you don't have breath to waste. Because you're _dead_. Akachi's memories are gone, and this woman is not the man we followed."

"We _beg_ you," the Bittersmith said, "whichever you may be, Akachi or his heir... turn your armies away and spare their souls."

"Never!" Kaelyn's wings snapped out.

"I don't have a choice," Tarva said. "I _have_ to end this curse if I can... if it can be done at all. I must take back my soul from the Wall."

"All must be judged by Kelemvor, at the end," the elf said. "As _we_ know well, he does not soon forget rebellion..." Her eyes narrowed. "You are not blindly committed to the Crusade, stranger. You know, as we do, and better than your companions, how much it costs. Can you pay that price with your eyes open?"

"I don't have a choice," Tarva repeated, but she sounded less certain this time.

"You do," the elf replied. Tarva froze, staring at her; the woman inclined her head, a smile growing on her features.

The False souls withdrew a tactful distance as Tarva turned back to them – Tarva as Gann had never seen her before. Gone was her fear, driven out entirely by the blazing light of hope in her eyes. "This is it, Gann. This is our way out." The words poured from her in a joyful torrent. "If we help _defend_ the city instead of attacking it, then it's not a hopeless battle, Kelemvor will be on our side and perhaps he will allow me to retrieve my soul – I'd rather trust his mercy than a single word Myrkul said, we already know he lied to us or the Founder – at the very least, we won't have rebelled against him in the name of a cause that was lost before it begun..."

There was more, but the single bright centre of it – that they _could_ change sides and did not have to fight a hopeless war, and they could win, she could be _freed_ – that alone had Tarva's hope mirrored in his heart and on his face.

Oh, Akachi's generals wouldn't like it, he knew, and he couldn't imagine any of them would be _easy_ opponents, but he and his friends were skilled; besides, their armies were scattered far, while Okku's and Ammon Jerro's were here.

"We will follow you, little one."

Ammon Jerro glanced over his shoulder at his fiends, clustered around an unsuspecting Sey'ryu, and laughed. "Give the word, girl."

Beside him, Safiya nodded. Her grin echoed Gann's, and was just a little bit savage besides. "Let's do it."

Gann realised they'd overlooked something huge and glaring only when Kaelyn said:

"No."

By the way Tarva paled, all her hope muted, almost quenched by that one syllable, she'd missed it too.

How could they all have known, and simultaneously forgotten? Kaelyn would never abandon the Crusade.

"No," the priestess repeated, her voice soft and melodious. "I cannot allow you to do this. I would rather see you dead at my feet than a traitor to the Crusade. The injustice of the Wall _must_ be ended." Kaelyn reached up, and freed the Sword of Gith. The bare blade shone even in the grey light of the Fugue Plane as she lowered it, carefully, deliberately. It wasn't a threat... but it was a very clear statement, reinforced with Kaelyn's words. "Tarva El-Auri, Raven of the Menagerie, remnant of Akachi... _I will not permit this_."

Tarva, her ashen face expressionless, stared at Kaelyn; the Dove looked back, her black eyes depthless and inscrutable. Only the faint sounds of screaming from the Wall of the Faithless broke the silence.

And then Tarva exhaled, a low, quiet sound that shouldn't even have been audible. "Kaelyn... I am sorry." She turned, and took just one step towards Kelemvor's emissaries.

" _Stop_." The voice cracked like thunder, cold and utterly in command. Gann didn't recognise it, even though he saw Kaelyn's lips move. "Perhaps you do not care for the innocents who suffer the agonies of the Wall. Perhaps, even after all our travels together, you care little for my quest or my life. I do not want to believe it, but it seems to be the truth," Kaelyn said, in that same ice-edged, unfamiliar voice. "So be it. But there are two others here-"

"You scheming, mongrel _bitch_ ," Safiya breathed. Kaelyn ignored her utterly; Tarva was still focused on the half-celestial; Ammon was watching the byplay with a scowl on his face, and Okku was doing much the same thing; which left only Gann equally shocked at both Safiya and Kaelyn.

"What-?" he muttered to the Red Wizard, who was, he recognised abruptly, in a towering fury.

"She's using us against Tarva, and I won't have it!"

" – have you forgotten that both your friend and your lover are bound for this Wall you go to defend? Are you really so selfish as to condemn them both to its tortures, when you can destroy it today and protect them? Tarva, you _promised_ him!"

"I... I did." Tarva looked up at him, and he saw it in her eyes, and the subtle slump of her shoulders.

"No, he said. "No, Tarva. Please, don't do this."

Safiya had caught on, too. "Tarva, it doesn't make _any_ sense to throw away your best chance at ending the Hunger on the remote possibility that you can destroy the Wall."

"I... I _know_ ," Tarva said, her dark eyes fixed on his, anguished and despairing. "But I can't... I can't choose otherwise. Forgive me."

"Fool girl," Ammon Jerro growled. "I told you. Your emotional ties are a weakness your enemies will exploit, and your so-called 'friends' are no better. Nine Hells, girl, _think!"_

"Kaelyn..." Tarva said, slow and weary. "I can never forgive you for this."

"if that is the price you exact for doing what is right, I pay it gladly," the priestess answered. "I walk in Ilmater's light; I have no need of your forgiveness."

Tarva didn't look away from Gann as she said, "Signal Zoab to begin the assault."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although you might not believe it at this point, I am actually very fond of Kaelyn.


	72. Again The Crusade

A long trumpet blast sounded from behind them. It filled the air, the sound pouring out longer than seemed possible, its echoes lingering oddly.

" 'Ware treachery!" the Bittersmith called to his companions. "Be on your guard!"

"I am sorry," Tarva said, swinging her scythe down from her shoulder.

And then battle was joined. The False souls, undeterred by neither the oppressive atmosphere of the land of the dead or the screams of the Faithless in the Wall, were swift and practiced; they had had many years to hone their skills and they fought to protect the home of their god.

On the other hand, there was Kaelyn, burning with zealot's fire.

It became clear within moments that the defenders of the city would have been hopelessly overmatched even if they had faced her alone. She beat the False souls back with every silver arc of the Sword of Gith, and she cried out, as Gann had never before heard her do in battle; not in her songbird's voice, but as the piercing call of a hawk as it falls on its prey.

Tarva brought her scythe down on the last of them just as Zoab, Rammaq, with Okku's telthors and Ammon's fiends, reached them. "That's done it," she murmured, only just loud enough for him to overhear as she glanced up at the looming Wall of the City. "No escape, no turning back, no way out. Gods forgive me..."

"The Third Crusade is well begun!" Zoab proclaimed. "Now, spirit-eater, we have the gate clear. Sey'ryu and Ammon Jerro will keep it that way. I intend to go straight for the Voice of Kelemvor, Rammaq for Eternity's End and the tomes stored there. What will you and your companions do? Both of us could use a little more support."

"I'll go with Rammaq," Tarva said quietly. "Gann, Safiya, I'd like you with me. Okku, I'd appreciate your help, but I want you to bring as many of your kin safely through this as possible. Going straight to the main battlefield might not be the best way to achieve that."

Okku snorted. "I stay with you, little one. And they stay with me."

"What role you would have me play in this battle?" a soft voice asked, provoking a sudden burst of déjà-vu.

"Do as you please," Tarva answered, and turned away; it was, apparently, all she was going to say to Kaelyn.

"Go with Zoab," Safiya advised, and added under her breath, "it'll stop me shoving a Meteor Swarm down your throat." Gann knew Tarva's long ears had caught the addition, for she shook her head just slightly, and perhaps Ammon's dark chuckle was a response; Kaelyn hadn't heard it, or else wasn't going to say anything. Either way, the priestess moved to Zoab's side.

"I wish you well," Kaelyn said.

Tarva was silent.

"We will join the battle at Eternity's End when the Voice is dead," Zoab told them. "We go to change the very order of the planes!"

"Stay safe, Ammon," Tarva said as the winged figures disappeared into the grey gloom of the city.

"And you, child," the warlock replied.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Silent and swift, Tarva led them through the empty streets of the grey city. Rammaq had claimed a place by her side; Gann had dropped back at a meaningful glance from Safiya, but was less than happy about it. Okku's spirits surrounded them on either side, accompanied by Rammaq's undead servants, whose numbers grew every moment as the demilich summoned more of them to the Plane.

Gann rubbed at his temples, trying to relieve the pressure of so many powerful spirits so close. The discomfort was rapidly becoming physical pain. "What do you want?" he asked Safiya.

The Red Wizard was watching Tarva, her expression thoughtful and a little sad. "We could have turned her back against the Crusade, you know. We could even now."

"No." It was not even worth considering. He knew Safiya was right – Tarva would never raise a hand against either of them – but _no_. In a long-ago dream, he had vowed to a phantom that he would neither fail nor betray her. He had hardly meant that promise when he'd given it, but many things had changed since then.

"No," Safiya agreed. "Do you see, Gann? We're all following her. You and I, Okku... even Rammaq."

He looked at the small figure, her full plate scuffed, scythe resting against her shoulder. Small, proud, determined and so very weary. "Yes. She's like that."

"Lovestruck fool," the Red Wizard muttered affectionately. "Yes, but that's not what I meant. Look at her. She's not thinking about it, but she doesn't hesitate. She doesn't stop to think or to deliberate the turns. She knows exactly where she's going." Safiya shook her head. "But she's never been to the city of the dead before."

Gann understood suddenly, as Tarva passed under a massive stone gateway. "But Akachi has."

"Y-"

"Invaders, hold your blasphemous march! Else we shall spill your blood here on these stones!" The challenge rang out from a tall figure in heavy armour, face obscured by a plumed helm, bastard sword held low and ready to attack. The rest – twenty, thirty, or even more - fell into formation behind the first, each rendered faceless and identical by their armour.

Tarva was poised to respond, but it was Rammaq, his hollow voice barely carrying on the dead air, who answered. "Paladins of Kelemvor! Yield, allow us passage... and perhaps I won't reanimate your pitiful corpses."

"We fight for our god, and your evil can have no power over us." The paladins charged, and the undead streamed forward to meet them.

The demilich's voice, produced by magic rather than lungs and throat, was not capable of much intonation. Still, it sounded low and urgent. "Akachi – take your servants and go. Find the Tome of the Dolorous Sage and the Tome of Ka'Tai, and return them to me. My servants can handle these fools."

"What do they look like?"

Safiya, Gann with her, slipped up the ranks of Okku's spirits to rejoin Tarva. "I can identify the tomes for you," the Red Wizard said.

Tarva nodded. "Right. Okku, are you with us?"

"Of course, little one." King Bear surveyed the paladin forces with a critical eye. "I'll break their formation _there_. The hole won't last for long – these two-leggers are quick to close ranks – so be ready to follow."

At a signal from Okku that Gann could feel but not understand, Audax Farsight led the telthor birds in a vicious swooping raid against the paladins. The defenders had been intent on their opponents, not in gawking at the sky. They were caught completely off-guard. The heavier birds pulled off helms, the lighter ones served as distractions, allowing the undead warriors crucial openings, and the eagle had knocked his target down without sacrificing much speed at all.

And then the rest of the spirits were upon them, Okku in the lead. He simply barged through the lines, sending the paladins flying like so many clay dolls. The stags lowered their heads and charged, while the crafty foxes darted into just the right places to trip Kelemvor's defenders.

Gann was just close enough to overhear Merelde, first among the othlor, muttering to herself, "I can't be having with this."

"Cheer up," Gythe replied, as the telthor berserkers closed with the paladins. "You aten't dead. Well, not so much. Like the vremyonni said to the orglash -"

"Now!" Tarva cried out, and dashed for the small opening in the fray. Her scythe whirled out, striking to right and left, keeping it clear long enough for Gann and Safiya to get through the break in the lines. "This way!"

The paladins, it seemed, did not see them leaving the battle; Rammaq's servants occupied them entirely. Okku found it a little harder to disengage his spirits, but it was really only instants before they were away, the ringing of steel on steel fading quickly in the still air of the grey city.

"There are three vaults," Tarva said, hurrying past the grey houses and their iron fences, forcing a pace that neither Safiya nor Gann kept easily. Her next words were softer, muttered to herself. "This isn't right, we should have been stopped by now, it doesn't make sense."

The eagle cried out from overhead, and Okku's head snapped up. "There are more coming, little one."

"I hear them," the half-elf said, but didn't slacken her pace or pull her scythe from her shoulder. "We're close to one of the vaults; we can reach it before they reach us."

"We will not fit," Old Father Bear rumbled, like distant thunder. "Not in time, not my kin." He looked at the bright ranks of Rashemen's strongest telthors, and his pale eyes closed for an instant. "Go, little one. We will hold here for you."

"Okku..." Tarva came to a sudden halt. "We can –"

" _Go!"_ Okku roared, swinging about to face the oncoming defenders. "Don't waste my time, little one!"

They ran, then. Safiya's robes fluttered awkwardly about her legs as she grabbed Kaji and clasped the homunculus to her chest rather than risk leaving him behind; Gann racing as he had not needed to in years, and Tarva urging them to still greater speed. Every instant mattered, and each passed so slowly.

Tarva threw herself ahead of them, fumbling impatiently at the handle and barging the door open with her shoulder when it finally turned. Gann followed her in and saw, in the moment it took his eyes to adjust to the dim light of the vault, only the flash of light on a curved blade.

But that was enough – he called an earth elemental, and knew a moment's relief when it answered his call to the Fugue Plane as promptly as it would have come to the Prime. Beside him, Safiya was muttering a pattern of arcane syllables, fire blossoming at her fingertips as Tarva rushed away from them.

The vault's guards – three more paladins – closed with Tarva. Her scythe flickered out, and was blocked by a sword; she wrenched free as Safiya's spell unerringly sought out the defenders, and Gann reached for his bow. One of the paladins tried to break free of Tarva's assault and get to Safiya; the weapon master turned to strike him down, leaving herself vulnerable to a vicious blow from another of the vault's guardians. Her scythe carved a path for itself through Safiya's would-be attacker, but fell from her hands when the paladin's sword found the joint between her pauldron and chestplate, and bit deep.

Tarva made a small sound of pain, her hands pressing feebly at the wound as blood spurted between her fingers. Safiya snarled at the sight, the sound of her chanting mingling with Gann's voice as they both shaped responses to it.

The paladin raised his bloody sword again as his fellow charged them; when Safiya's spell hit, he simply stood there, sword held high and loosely as Tarva scrambled away. He didn't even look surprised when the massive clenched fist of the elemental came down – and once it smashed him into the stone floor of the vault, there was nothing left that he could have looked surprised with.

Gann got his spell off, healing Tarva – who dropped down to one knee to pick up her scythe. Holding at the very end of the handle, low to the ground, she swung the blade around until it hooked in front of the last paladin.

He didn't see it.

He did, however, trip over it. Safiya and Gann scattered as the out-of-control figure of a paladin in heavy armour with a great big sword fell towards them.

Then the earth elemental picked up the paladin by one leg, dangled him in the air in front of its face thoughtfully – and smashed him against the floor until he stopped moving.

Safiya hopped daintily over the bodies, Kaji fluttering in her wake as she reached the closest bookshelf. "Oh, look at this," she murmured to herself – and the last time Gann had heard that low, hungry note in a woman's voice, he'd been naked - "Balennen's grimoire... the Tome of Iltkazar, only a copy, but..." Safiya dug out a Bag of Holding from her robes, and nearly dropped it when she saw another book. " _The diary of Andraegen Vorn_!" The Red Wizard pulled the book from the shelf and cradled it to her chest. "I have to – oh, I've never even –"

"Safiya, we're not here to strip the vault," Tarva said quietly. "And Okku's army is buying us this time. Let's just find the Tomes of Ka'Tai and of the Dolorous Sage and keep moving."

"O-Of course," Safiya said, but that didn't stop her claiming a few choice volumes as she scanned the shelves.

Tarva stood at the doorway, looking out on the City of the Dead. Gann joined her. The streets seemed calm and empty; Rammaq and Okku held the fighting away from them. The undead were expendable, but the spirits... "Gann." Tarva's soft voice interrupted his thoughts. He turned to see her watching him, eyes tracing his face as if to memorise it. A worthwhile goal... but further levity failed him.

"I wish you hadn't come," she said, "but I'm glad you're here." She cast a quick glance behind her, where Safiya was three-quarters of the way around the shelves. "Everywhere I look, I see something Akachi knew. This city, Safiya, Rammaq... But not you. It helps. I can't tell you how much it helps just to see your face."

It took him much longer than usual to craft an appropriate response. "It _is_ a remarkably handsome face," Gann agreed, trying to remember how to speak lightly, "certain to boost anyone's morale."

"I've found the Tome of the Dolorous Sage," Safiya said, appearing at Gann's shoulder, holding a dilapidated volume as long as her arm, her fingers absently caressing its spine. "I think Ka'Tai's volume must be in one of the other vaults. Shall we go find out?"


	73. Rammaq

Scattered groups of Kelemvor's paladins and Rammaq fought for the streets of the City of Judgment as Gann, Safiya and Tarva left the second vault behind them and made for the third. The second had not contained what they were looking for, which Safiya had announced only after purloining a small selection of books.

"Here," Tarva said, the first word out of her mouth in some time, and pushed open the vault's door for them.

"I know why you have come." The female voice was low and furious, but unaccompanied by any sound of movement. "I _will_ not allow the Tome of Ka'Tai to fall into the hands of that undead abomination." This guardian was alone, and apparently unarmed – but very determined to protect the tattered book she held.

"He's a demilich," Safiya muttered to herself. "Phenomenal arcane power, but unless he casts one of Bisby's spells, he _has_ no hands for the Tome to fall into."

"I don't want Rammaq to have it either," Tarva answered, a soft-voiced response that nevertheless took everyone by surprise. "I don't trust the demilich, and I never should have freed him in the first place."

And that made even less sense. "Tarva?"

"No," Safiya murmured. "Akachi."

Tarva blinked twice and took a deep breath. "A... slip. Don't let it concern you." She turned back to the vault keeper. "We also have the Tome of the Dolorous Sage. I'd like you to take it to whatever safety you can find with the Crusade about. I'll deal with Rammaq."

The woman seemed to have converted all her fury into confusion. "You mean it, Betrayer. But... why would you work against one who is your ally?"

"That epithet, perhaps?" Safiya suggested under her breath.

"To right an old mistake," Tarva answered the vault keeper. "And..." she sighed. "I never should have been your enemy. Safiya, the Tome of the Dolorous Sage?"

"Tarva..." the Red Wizard said, her eyes wide and pleading.

The half-elf was unmoved.

Safiya took the Tome out of her Bag of Holding with great reverence and equal reluctance.

"It is unfortunate that you chose to aid the Crusade," the woman said as she accepted the book. "I wish that we had met as friends. For the little it is worth... I will speak of you to my lord."

"It is worth much," Tarva answered quietly.

They were barely out of the vault before Safiya blurted out, "Tarva, what in the Nine Hells are you doing here? Whose side are we actually on?"

Tarva settled her scythe on her shoulder, and begun to retrace their steps at a rate that left little breath for conversation. "Ours." She turned them down an alley – either to avoid Kelemvor's paladins, or because it was a faster route back, Gann wasn't sure. He was hopelessly lost; the grey buildings all looked alike to him, and the flat grey sky offered no guidance.

"That's... not... very helpful," Safiya commented.

"Safiya," Tarva said. "Gann. Do you trust me?"

"You know I do," he answered.

"Yes," Safiya replied. "I trust you. I just don't understand-"

"Good," Tarva told her. "It only gets messier and more dangerous from here."

"Messy and dangerous I can deal with," the Red Wizard said, "but I hate not having reasons."

"Let me keep them for now," the weapon master said. "You're better off not knowing."

The change in her – oh, the desperation and the fear had neither left her nor lessened, but they were overlaid by a calm confidence that reminded him of nothing so much as one of the Coven's dreams. She had played the part of the Betrayer then, and now she lived it... " _I've led troops in a lost cause before,_ " she had said, _"and I know how that goes._ _I'm holding together, Gann._ "

"But be ready," Tarva was saying. "We're going to antagonize a demilich. I can handle him, but I may need you to keep his servants off me."

The roar of a close and very angry bear covered anything else that might have been said. Tarva accelerated, pulling her scythe down from her shoulder, and disappeared around the corner; by the time Gann and Safiya caught up, she was holding three paladins off the othlor Gythe and Merelde, while the eagle swooped at them.

Okku's army had suffered some losses, but judging from the number of bodies scattered about them, Kelemvor's had come off the worse for attacking them. Gann nocked an arrow to his bow as Safiya raised her hands; between the four of them, and the army, it really wasn't long before the last of the paladins fell.

Okku bared his blood-stained fangs at them. "That was glorious, little one! Where next?"

"Back to Rammaq," Tarva told him.

"To antagonize him, apparently," Safiya added.

Old Father Bear grunted. "Good."

They crossed back through the grey streets. In some corners, Rammaq's undead still warred with Kelemvor's defenders; in others, the undead warriors stood alone.

The demilich waited for them by the district gates. "Betrayer, have you the tomes?"

"No," Tarva said, shifting her grip on the scythe-handle, "The Vault Keeper took them, and by now they are out of your reach."

The gemstones in Rammaq's eye sockets glittered with cold light. "Betrayal... I know not why you would turn against me, but you will die for it."

"I doubt it," Tarva said, and called the Hunger to wake. The few of the demilich's servants who remained nearby sprang to their master's defence and Gann, Safiya, Okku and his kin turned to meet them.

It was... strange, Gann found time to think as he fired arrow after arrow. For all Tarva's word on how impossible their quest was, how she had expected Kelemvor to smite them instantly for daring to raise a hand against him... nothing they had faced so far had been much of a challenge. Perhaps, even now, they could win.

The curse's dark form reached out towards the spirit army; her teeth bared, Tarva forced it to turn for Rammaq instead. Its black tendrils whipped restlessly about the skull, severing the arcane ties that had enabled him cheat death.

"Tarva! NO!"

Wings flared, brandishing the Sword of Gith, Kaelyn arrived.

With a burst of white light, and a clatter, Rammaq's skull fell to the cobbles of the grey city. Okku shook bits of undead off his muzzle as Tarva slowly pulled the Hunger back beneath her skin.

Kaelyn's black eyes were wide, their expression hard and uncharacteristic of the half-celestial Gann had come to know, but fully in keeping with the zealot who had turned them back to the Crusade at the Gate. "What have you done?" she asked, soft and angry.

Safiya raised her head, standing proudly beside Tarva. "We failed to retrieve the Tomes Rammaq wanted. He believed that we deliberately betrayed him, and attacked."

Everything Safiya said was true; it was just a little misleading. Gann admired her choice of words, knowing that Tarva was unlikely to agree with a lie, and that Kaelyn never looked beneath the surfaces of things.

The feathers of Kaelyn's wings settled slowly. "Is this truth, Tarva? I have never known you fail before."

"Then you did not listen carefully enough when I told you of my past," the half-elf said, and lifted her face to look at Zoab and the members of Kelemvor's militia who followed him. "I see you met with success in your task."

"We did," Zoab answered. "Now –"

From overhead came a harsh croaking, and Hukhin and Myunni circled down to land – rather heavily – on Okku's back. " _We bear a message,"_ Hukhin announced.

" _Word of your deeds has spread quickly, spirit-eater. The Scrivener requests an audience with you."_

"In the Temple?" Tarva asked.

" _Indeed,"_ Myunni said. _"Do you remember the way?"_

"Of course." The weapon master turned back to them. "Are you coming, Okku? I'll warn you, it's up a flight of stairs."

Okku growled. "Little one, don't insult me."

"Never," Tarva said, her small attempt at humour dying quickly. "Nor will I ever forget what I owe you."

"End this, spirit-eater, and we'll call it paid." Old Father Bear looked over his telthors; his pale eyes noted every missing spirit and mourned their loss. "We waste time."

Tarva nodded, and glanced at Safiya, who echoed the gesture. Her eyes lingered a few breaths more on Gann, dark and serious, and filled with love. "Shall we go?"

"Lead the way," he answered, and noticed that she didn't even look at Kaelyn before choosing a direction and setting off. Gann picked up the pace and took a place by her side; Safiya fell in on her other side, while Okku and his army followed them.

"I must say," Safiya did so, "you seem rather more relaxed about all this than I'd expected." Gann had noticed the same thing – although he believed 'resigned' was a better description.

"I could say the same for you," Tarva answered.

"I'm not the one who's cursed." The streets were empty now save for themselves; neither Kelemvor's paladins and Rammaq's undead were in evidence.

Tarva moved her shoulders in a weary shrug, conceding the point. "I am a weapon master, not some idiot fighter or barbarian. I keep my head in a fight, and in this kind, it doesn't matter what the odds are. You do the best you can until you cannot continue. Whether that's enough... well. Success or failure is – largely – out of our hands."

"Well, that's depressing," Safiya murmured, running a hand over her scalp.

"Perhaps," the half-elf answered, and looked up at the looming Crystal Spire. "We're almost there."

They turned another corner, and the steps Tarva had mentioned to Okku stood before them. The bear-god gave a few orders to his spirits, who settled themselves to defend the stairs – should it prove necessary – as Okku slowly started climbing.

Hukhin and his brother landed on a nearby fence. " _We will come with you, spirit-eater."_

Gann had some suspicions about those two and their loyalties – they'd brought the message from the Scrivener, and just how had that come to pass? - but the more allies they had with them, the better.

If allies they were.

Perhaps something of his doubt on the subject showed on his face, for Myunni launched himself into the air, then landed heavily on the hagspawn's shoulder. " _We have always flown freely between the worlds of the living and the dead,"_ the raven reminded him, as he followed Tarva and Safiya up the stairs, hearing Kaelyn behind him. " _You can trust us."_

" _We want to see this curse ended,"_ his brother added, _"but there is little more we can do. We have spoken to the Scrivener and to others; Myunni brought more of the spirit-eater's memories to the surface of her mind to guide her."_

Ah. That last sentence explained a great deal. The Coven, the Wells of Lurue and the Mosstone, each powerful aids to dreaming, had shaped Akachi's memories into dreams for her. Strong dreams, with much truth to them, but only dreams. It was not until Myunni and Hukhin had sifted her memories – and she'd complained that they hadn't 'put everything back in the right order' – that she had begun to remember and to think as Akachi.

Oh, Tarva.

" _And we will fight,"_ Myunni added.

" _Still,"_ Hukhin croaked disapprovingly, " _she is_ not _a raven."_

"No," Tarva answered them. How long had she been listening? More importantly, how did he always manage to forget just how good her hearing was? "I think I would have noticed if I was. The distinct lack of feathers – ah." She interrupted herself as the Temple doors swung open at her approach.

The bare, grey walls of the Temple were fit setting indeed for the grey, cowled figure (and Gann was getting very sick of that ubiquitous grey; even looking at Okku's garish fur was better) who stood in its middle, watching the spirit-eater, the Red Wizard, the winged Ilmaterian, the bear-god, and the shaman with a raven on each shoulder enter.

"You asked for me," Tarva greeted him.

The hooded head inclined. "Tarva El-Auri," the man replied, his nondescript features still and emotionless.

"Thank you," she said. "You are the first person here who has addressed me by name, not as Akachi or the Betrayer."

"You are those, too," the Scrivener conceded, "but it is to Tarva that I wish to speak. Your Crusade... has not proceeded as I expected. The Voice of Kelemvor has been slain, and defenders of the City of Judgment have fallen. You are a difficult and tenacious foe... I would not make the mistake of the former Scrivener and underestimate you." The man regarded Tarva carefully. "Thus I have an offer to put to you."

"We have no need to bargain with you," Kaelyn replied. "Our aim is to topple the Wall of the Faithless. If you stand in our way, you will be defeated."

"Kaelyn," Tarva murmured, and Gann could not decipher the inflection of her voice, whether it was warning, or command, or disappointment, all of them and more, or something else entirely.

"My duty is to the Codex of the Dead, not to the defence of the city," the Scrivener said, "and I will let you read from it, if you will spare me to that duty. Your soul is what you seek; it is not necessary for you to destroy me as your predecessor destroyed mine."

"Why should we trust you?" the Dove demanded.

"You have my word as one of Kelemvor's faithful. We do not give it lightly." The man raised his head to look at the half-celestial, a touch of sorrow, and of contempt, twisting his lips. "Have you forgotten so soon? Have you lost this as you lost your faith, Kaelyn the Dove?"

"I have – " Kaelyn stepped forward, wings flaring, but Tarva cut across her words.

"I thank you," the half-elf said. "Yes."

The Scrivener bowed lightly and moved aside.

In the next room the Codex waited; a book implausibly large (more than big enough to pose problems for Safiya, should she attempt to carry it off) and already open to a double-page near its front. The letters were tiny and formed no words Gann could read as they spidered halfway down the left-hand page. Even as he watched, the script flowed steadily onward.

"I can't read it," Safiya complained quietly.

"I can," Tarva replied, stretching up on her toes, and reaching out to the page. Her finger shook slightly as she ran it beneath one line. "At least, this part... it's my name. And a location. It's not far from here."

"Then that's where we go," the Dove said, as Tarva turned away from the Codex. "It would be an auspicious beginning to our assault on the Wall."

The Scrivener made a soft sound of contemptuous amusement – for a moment, Gann thought that Ammon Jerro had caught up with them. "The Wall clings tightly to its prizes. Even Akachi nearly died freeing Nefris. I do not think you are made of as fine material as he, Kaelyn."

"Perhaps not," the Dove said. "We shall see."

"Nefris," Safiya said softly, almost to herself. "I had forgotten. If I ever knew."

"Your mother's name?" Gann asked.

"Yes," the Red Wizard answered. "And the Founder's. Or, you know, mine. When I was her."

Outside the Temple, they were met by a familiar face. The red had bleached from his robe, leaving it grey, and the bald, tattooed head was covered by an ash-coloured hood, but Araman's face was unmistakable. As was Safiya's reaction.

Okku would've envied her snarl.

"You are my brother's heir in _truth_ ," Araman said, as Safiya's fingers started to weave a silent spell. Whether she thought she was avenging her mother and Lienna, or herself, or - since the parts of the Founder's soul had returned to the whole when their bodies were slain and nothing had been lost – she just didn't like him, Gann couldn't say. Perhaps not even Safiya could.

"I am all that is left of him," Tarva said. "I am not your enemy."

"You are as stubborn... as _deluded_... as _blind_ as he ever was. I will end your Crusade here." Safiya loosed her spell, and Araman staggered beneath it, then Kaelyn and Okku rushed him... and if he had been easily defeated when they faced him outside the Founder's sanctum, this time he simply crumpled.

"Forgive me, brother," Tarva murmured, her eyes fixed on the empty stretch of cobbles where Araman had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, for a chapter in the midst of a doom-and-gloom Crusade, this is pretty light. I don't get it either... Safiya just suddenly insisted on snarking in the first part of this chapter. Usually she just gets to break up tender or awkward moments between Gann and Tarva. My best guess is that expanding on her near-worship of books also let some more of my own personality traits to slip through. And, come on, that demilich/hands thing was just lazy.
> 
> Also, Gann seems to have relinquished his usual place in the spotlight this chapter. I don't know what's wrong, but he's definitely not himself. He barely says a word.
> 
> As I learned from reading Epantiras's awesome "Ask The Betrayer" comic (http://epantiras.deviantart.com/art/ATB-141-175538566) Rammaq is hilariously vulnerable to 'Mass Fowl'. Tried it four times... never failed me. So that's right, folks, you too can turn the demilich into a chicken! If you don't want to waste one of your Epic feats on 'Mass Fowl', make Gann learn it. I really, really, really wanted to dispose of Rammaq like that, but...


	74. Again Kelemvor

Before them stood the Wall of the Faithless. Its surface rippled, as though it had shivered at their approach, and the screams of the souls mortared there echoed louder amid the cracking of bones.

Beside Tarva, Safiya retched at the sound, pressing her hand to her mouth; the half-elf turned to her. "Memories?"

Safiya nodded weakly.

"This is where it began," Kaelyn said, gazing at the Wall. "Where Akachi freed his lover's soul, where Myrkul caught him and entombed him. This is-" she raised the Sword of Gith high- "this is where it shall end! To me, my allies!" She charged toward the Wall –

\- and the smothering weight of the land of the dead grew more oppressive, intensifying to the point it was all Gann could do to remain upright, and then it pressed down even harder, forcing him to hands and knees. He could see, just barely (for he could not raise his heavy, aching head, and his fallen hair curtained his vision), Kaelyn ahead of him, the Sword of Gith dropped from her hand as she, too was forced down. Tarva beside him, and the soft words falling from her mouth, "Gann, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... forgive, please forgive me..."

A croak was all he could muster in response; he did not understand how she could speak at all.

Safiya's breathing was hoarse and rasping, as though each breath drawn against that pressure was an effort, and he could hear Okku behind them, snarling as he tried to fight back to his feet.

And still Tarva was murmuring her despairing apologies beside him, and he couldn't bear it...

A grey boot and the hem of a grey robe came down on the Sword of Gith, pressing the blade to the rough cobblestone. Kaelyn tried to protest as she groped feebly after the sword. A deep, masculine voice, even and dispassionate, said "Kaelyn the Dove, leader of the Second Crusade, formerly one of my Doomguides. You have returned where you are not welcome, wielding the Sword of Gith as proudly and as blindly as a child waves a flag." His gloved hand picked up the Sword. "Have you learned nothing? I am reminded that I should have been just, and not merciful."

"Kelemvor," Kaelyn gasped out. Kelemvor... The echo of Chauntea's presence at the Red Tree had been almost suffocating; the cold malice of dead Myrkul had been a physical burden; but neither distant echo nor lingering shade could begin to approach this heavy oppression, the aura of the god of the dead in the heart of his power. Kelemvor had caught them, and there was nothing more they could do. They had failed, the Crusade was lost, and they would all pay whatever price the god of the dead deemed fit.

And the weight of that was heavier than his regard.

"...I should have – oh, Gann, Safiya... Okku, all your bright army, Ammon... oh, forgive me..."

"Spirit-eater," Kelemvor did not move. "You have brought strife to my gates, ignored every warning and spurned every chance you were given, and allied yourself with a cause whose consequences were clear to your eyes. Stand. What have you to say for yourself?"

The pressure lessened, only enough to make breathing easier, but somehow Tarva found the strength to stand in response to the command. She staggered slightly – with a wrenching effort, Gann shifted his weight and dragged his hand across the ground, and managed to grip the top of her boot, which he could barely see. It was all he could do to say, _it is not your fault. We all made the choice to follow you, and I do not regret it. I love you._

She drew a deep and shuddering breath; her soft voice was clear and not without strength when she spoke. "Lord, there is little I can say. Yes, I have done these things, and I... I willingly accept your judgment for my transgressions. But –" her breath caught in her throat, in a sob.

"But?" the god said, his voice emotionless.

"But, Lord, if I could... I would turn your hand from those who have followed me here. From Safiya and Okku, and... and Gann. They did not know what the consequences of their love and their loyalty would be. How could they? They are Faithless, and Okku is unfamiliar with your ways. I beg you to spare them – or if your justice demands a price for their actions, let it fall upon me."

No... the cry was torn from his throat and strangled into an indistinguishable sound by the weight of Kelemvor's presence and the simultaneous and equally unintelligible protests of Okku and Safiya.

"Only... oh, Lord, only let them be..."

There was silence. "And my former Doomguide?" the god asked, flat and incurious. "Will you plead for her also?"

"I... no." Beside him, Kaelyn was utterly still as Tarva answered. "No, Lord, I – I cannot. She knew the consequences, as I did." Another moment of silence, and Tarva spoke again. "Lord Kelemvor, I would face the Hells with a glad heart if I knew that the ones I love were spared."

"And that Myrkul's punishment was ended?"

"I... I wish it ended," she said, "but if it would save them, or if it was your decreed punishment, I would carry it until my death and to the Wall."

Kelemvor said nothing in reply to this declaration. Instead "Okku of Rashemen. Safiya of Thay. Gannayev-of-Dreams. Stand."

With the command, the weight of his presence ceased to pull so heavily at Gann. The hagspawn forced himself to his feet – Safiya and Okku were doing to same thing nearby - and so came face-to-face with the god of the dead – who had a raven on each shoulder... Hukhin and Myunni had betrayed them?

Kelemvor was tall, but not physically imposing, clad in the same grey robe and cowl of his servants. His face was hidden by a silver mask, its eyes closed. It did not turn when the god addressed Safiya. "Child of Thay, what say you to this? Are you as ignorant as the spirit-eater claims? Will you let her carry your sins against me as she will her own?"

"No," Safiya said, her voice shaky, but certain. "I can take whatever you can dish out."

Tarva's voice was barely audible. "No, Safiya, please."

" Just," the Red Wizard said, "just... let Akachi's sufferings be ended."

"And if you had to balance Akachi's sufferings against Tarva's?"

Safiya didn't hesitate. "She never asked for this. It was never her responsibility to end the curse – it was the Founder's, and mine... not hers."

"Lord Okku of Rashemen?"

The rainbow-furred bear, his shining telthor army still prostrate behind him, bared his teeth. "I will never understand the gods of men. This curse which preys upon my kin was created to punish one man – god of the dead, how is that justice? This little one has shown both courage and honour, and she bears my token. I demand that you free her and end this."

"You are less than I am, god though you be, and you cannot make demands here." The masked face did not turn; nevertheless, it was focused upon Gann.

Tarva interrupted, her hands clenched into fists with the effort that it took. "Lord Kelemvor, they _do not know_. They didn't know the risks because I-"

The force of Kelemvor's regard pressed down again on the half-elf – she barely held herself upright against it, but was silent.

In a moment's insight, Gann knew what she'd been about to say. They had not know the risks, because she had not told them. She had refused to give Safiya reasons for her actions, because she had feared all along that it could – no, that it _would_ – come to this. She had desperately wanted to spare them, and keeping them ignorant, or innocent, was the only way she could devise.

"I didn't know," he said. "I didn't know, because Tarva tried to protect me." He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Safiya hiding her mouth behind her hand as she saw what he had just seen. His gaze was still fixed on the silver mask. "I didn't know... but my actions would not have changed if I had. Because I love her. So wherever your wrath falls... that place is reserved for me, not her."

A faint sound of protest from Tarva.

Kelemvor sighed, so human a sound that it surprised Gann. "Tarva El-Auri. I have heard over-much of you. Efrem the Stag, Susah the Crow and my Favoured, the Otak, all plead for you. The souls you rescued from the Red Wizards' torment praise your name. The Keeper of my Vault was... effusive. Myrkul the once-god and Rammaq the god-who-would-be, have both come at last to my judgment through your deeds. Even these two," Hukhin croaked on his shoulder, a sound that was translated inside Gann's head as a snigger, "have spoken well of you, and that is rare."

The ravens launched themselves into the air, rejoining Okku's army as Kelemvor's gloved hand rose and made a small gesture. "And there is one more who has interceded for you."

The smothering weight of Kelemvor's presence did not lessen, but added to the grey, dispassionate aura, there came another sensation. This one was warm, maternal – even friendly, particularly when compared to Kelemvor, and somehow familiar.

There was a flare of silver-grey light from the gloved hand; when it faded, a woman stood beside him, smiling at them. Her bare feet and the beauty of her face made her seem young; the shape of her body was that of a mature woman; the silver hair that spilled down her back suggested age. She was clad in a shining gown that seemed green as new leaves one instant, and gold as field of ripe wheat the next... and that colour was tugging a memory free from the back of Gann's mind.

Beside him, Tarva had dropped to one knee, her head bowed and her hand placed over her heart. "Chauntea," she breathed reverently.

"Rise, child," the goddess said, her voice gentle and a little amused. "You know I do not require such obeisance."

"Lady, what else have I to offer you?" Tarva asked, but rose to her feet all the same. Safiya was openly gawking; Kaelyn's gaze was fixed on the silver sword in Kelemvor's hands; Okku was still fuming over being so easily defeated by the god of the dead; and Gann himself was still trying to remember... something about voices in the distance, and that glowing green, feeling uneasily that it was important... but Tarva, beside him, stood abashed in the presence of the god who was here to pronounce judgment on them all, and did not even raise her eyes to the smiling countenance of her goddess.

"None of my deeds are worthy of you," the half-elf said softly. "My soul is forfeit to the Hunger and the Wall – what is left to give you, Earthmother?"

"Your heart has never wavered from me," Chauntea told her – and if that was not love in her eyes when she looked at Tarva, the faces of the gods were unlike mortals' indeed. "Nor did you surrender your soul willingly. Your actions -"

"- are more questionable," Kelemvor interjected.

"That's not fair," Safiya said, stepping forward to defend her friend. "I do know that much. You could have stopped us with a thought. Instead, you permitted the Crusade."

"Yes," the uninflected voice answered. "Because I wished Myrkul's injustice undone. I could not act myself against another god, not even one who is dead. But a mortal could end Akachi's undeserved suffering. "

"What about the undeserved suffering of the innocents condemned to your Wall?" Kaelyn's voice was hard and self-righteous.

"They remain," Kelemvor said. "I will not allow you to destroy the Wall of the Faithless. It is..." and that small faltering was like regret, "it is necessary. If men were no longer held responsible for their faith, they would abandon the gods entirely. Who, then, would protect them when their mortal life is passed? You need us as we need you. The Wall stands to remind you."

"Yes, Lord," Tarva whispered. "But those who do not know this... those who have never heard the echo of the gods' voices in their hearts, or seen the reflection of your faces... must they, too, be condemned?" A sidelong glance at him and at Safiya.

"Even the gods are bound by laws," Chauntea said, sorrow shading her voice. She stepped forward, and laid her hand, briefly, on the top of Tarva's bent head. "My daughter, you've walked a hard road." The half-elf, encouraged by that touch, lifted her eyes and looked for the first time full into the face of her goddess. "There was little help I could give you on your way. A balm. A scythe." Chauntea turned her head, her lips curving into a wider smile that her eyes begged Gann to share. "A dream."

A _dream_. How had he forgotten? " _You_ ," Gann said in shock, as he suddenly remembered and understood. In the Academy, he'd woken in the middle of his dream and forgotten it – two things that never happened to a dreamwalker. "It was you! The green one. You asked the red one for a favour, and she granted it. She wasn't sure whether she had the right, but she wanted to, and I woke up and _forgot_ – "

"Yes," Chauntea answered. "I was impressed you even heard us, Gann-of-Dreams. You are Faithless, so neither of us could speak to you directly, but Sune has a small hold on anyone who loves truly. I simply had to persuade her to wake you in time to hear Tarva. We both trusted you to handle things from there." The goddess tilted her head. "She was happy to do it; I believe she has plans for you two. Nor does she give the Dreamer's Heart where it is not needed." _Remember that_ echoed forcefully in Gann's head, although he could not have sworn he'd heard it said.

"You are so near the end, my daughter," Chauntea said. "One final trial remains before you. Reclaim what is yours from the Wall, and from Akachi. End the curse; you have found what you need."

"I will not stand in your way," Kelemvor said, "but know this: my memory is long, and all must come to my judgment in the end. On that day, the debts of your Crusade will come due."

"I will shield you," Chauntea whispered, cupping Tarva's face in her palms. "Only win back your soul, and I will allow no evil fate to befall you." She touched her lips to Tarva's forehead, and for a moment, the weapon master shone with green-gold light.

"A final warning. The Wall does not part easily with its treasures," Kelemvor said. Between one breath and the next, he and Chauntea disappeared, and the oppressive sense of their presence with them.

"Well," Safiya said, shaking her head as the spirit army pressed close about Okku, seeking comfort and reassurance. "That... happened."

Kaelyn was staring at Tarva, something uneasy and almost awestruck in her expression.

"Time to end this, little one," Okku said, pacing up to them.

"Yes," Tarva said. As if waking from a dream, she shook herself; her eyes scanned the Wall as they approached it.

The structure towered above them, its hands reaching out in desperation, its mouths open and screaming... and there, among the souls of the Wall, was Tarva. She almost seemed to be looking over her shoulder at them – but her eyes were closed, her skin colourless, and her teeth clenched in a skull's rictus. Her head was thrown back from the Wall and her neck twisted at an impossible, broken angle. The greenish mould covered her limbs, sending its creeping fingers across her back.

Without a word, Gann pulled the dream-dagger from his boot, and plunged the blade into the Wall beside Tarva's shoulder. Kaelyn, beside him, was scraping the mould from the soul's back with her bare hands; Safiya had found another dagger somewhere and was crouching at Gann's feet, chipping away at the Wall.

A quake ran along the Wall of the Faithless as its defences activated. Six huge golems, greenish things seemingly made of the same monstrous stuff as the Wall they defended, lumbered towards them. Okku roared a challenge, and his army closed with them. Mindless, they ignored the telthors, focused only on those who sought to steal one of the Wall's souls.

An arm came free – Gann looked away after one horrified glance and dug faster. Elbows had never been intended to bend in that direction, and, oh, her _fingers..._

Tarva's scythe struck again and again, flaming green and golden, defying the golems' efforts to pass her and reach her friends. Okku had raised himself to his hind legs, his massive paws raking out and clawing parts of the golems away; that badger spirit was biting at their feet.

"To your left!" Tarva called to Okku, as the fall of a golem shook the earth beneath them.

"Oh, by all the Hells," Safiya breathed, and Gann _wasn't_ going to look at whatever had brought that note into her voice. He nearly had her shoulder out. "What sane creature would create something like this?"

"I do not believe Myrkul was ever sane," Kaelyn said. Even now her voice was soft and serene. Two rapid tremors indicated that two more of the golems had fallen.

With a sickening sound like tearing flesh, Tarva's soul separated from the Wall of the Faithless. It lay at their feet, white and limp, mangled in ways that only a mind as sadistic as Myrkul's could possibly have devised.

Kaelyn had already turned her spells on the Wall's golems; beside him, Safiya had only glanced at their prize before turning away, trying to stop herself from emptying the contents of her stomach on the grey cobbles, and failing miserably. Gann wished he could do the same. Instead, he was powerless to avert his gaze, every detail of what had been done to her soul burning itself irrevocably into his mind.

The last golem fell.

"Safiya?" Tarva rushed to the Red Wizard's side. "Are you – "

"Fine," she choked out, and waved a dismissive hand. "It's what they've done to you – oh, Tarva – just... your soul."

Okku, standing over the twisted shape, snarled. "This... There is no sense in this. There is no _honour_."

Her face empty of expression, Tarva knelt by Okku's side and looked down at her soul. She nodded, as if to herself; their eyes met for a moment, and her glance was a caress. She reached out her hand, and her fingers brushed against its surface...

... and then it all went wrong.

The soul crumbled underneath her touch, collapsing in on itself and leaving nothing behind. Tarva's hair whipped around her, as though pulled by a flurry of wind – but he could feel nothing, and neither Okku's fur nor Kaelyn's feathers had stirred – her eyes were wide and glassy, staring at nothing at all.

The wind-that-was-not died, and Tarva was utterly still.

He was calling her name, Okku and Kaelyn were shouting, and Safiya was pleading her to answer, but there was no response.

Her lips parted, releasing a scream of such agony as Gann had never imagined, a sound that cut through all their babbling words, and seemed even to silence the souls of the Wall.

And then she fell, and did not move again.

"No!" He could not sense her. He could not sense the spirit-eater. " _Tarva_." It could not end like this.

The golden light of Kaelyn's healing lanced into her without effect, and Safiya was ranting furiously.

Gann did not hear it as he looked down at Tarva's motionless body. He was simply... numb. Cold, lifeless, empty. No point. Nothing left.

Or not quite. There was one last thing that was not despair, but a small flame, a steady warmth; the assurance of Tarva's presence and of her love.

Then the echo of a goddess's voice: _"Remember that._ "

Of a dreamer's. "The Dreamer's Heart... either your life or hers will depend on it."

 _Hers,_ he told the Heart. _My life for hers._

It tugged at him, and he gladly followed into the darkness.

He didn't even feel it when his body fell to the cobblestones.


	75. Akachi

Light and the sounds of battle faded into being around him. Safiya's room at the Academy. Speed and flurry, voices shouting to each other – familiar voices – Gann blinked, trying to clear his vision.

When he succeeded, a robed figure with a grinning skull for a face was bringing a scythe down on him. Numbed as he was, his reflexes were too slow to dodge it – but it fell, an arrow through its throat.

Gann looked up into the face of the archer.

"A shame you are not as intelligent as you are handsome," the man said, tossing silvery hair out of his piercing green eyes. "If you have any skill with that bow, I suggest you use it. Tarva needs us."

Mechanically, Gann took the other Gann's advice, choosing his targets among the robed scythe-wielders almost at random as his eyes scanned the room. He could not understand what he was seeing. Safiya's room was not large, but it was crammed full. In one corner, a snarling Okku was defending Safiya against an onslaught of the robed figures. His double had summoned a fire elemental, who rushed to their aid.

... and there, whirling and striking, trying desperately to reach a surrounded Kaelyn, was Tarva.

His heart leapt, sending a spike of energy racing through his veins, and he concentrated his fire on those about her. The other-Gann's arrows sped with his; Safiya filled the air with magic and Okku filled it with growls as he knocked them down; Kaelyn healed herself and reached for a weapon that wasn't there, as Tarva put herself between the cleric and the skull-things. Her scythe countered a blow and flashed out to kill another in the same strike. Okku felled the last of those near him and rushed to Tarva's aid, fighting alongside the fire elemental – and faced with their unified resistance, the last of the hooded figures fell quickly.

Breathing hard, Tarva straightened from the prone figure of the last assailant, and her eyes, wide and incredulous, fell on him. "Gann? What-"

"In dreams we are bound," the other Gann interrupted smoothly, "and I am with you in this until the end."

"Not _you_ ," she said, her eyes fixed on his. "Gann, what's happening?"

"I am not sure," he said. "We pulled your soul from the Wall. You touched it, it disappeared... and you were gone. I– I couldn't sense you. I thought... I thought you were d- _gone_."

"Oh, Gann. I-I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "Then I remembered what I had been told of the Dreamer's Heart, and I followed it here. To... Safiya's room?"

"I don't understand either," she said, as the others approached her.

"I am here," Kaelyn said to Tarva, "and I will help you end this."

Okku's pale eyes regarded her steadily. "This is the last journey before us. Let us end this curse and free you."

Tarva tilted her head as if hearing something in the distance. Safiya opened her mouth – and the half-elf scrambled away. "Oh, gods," she said, tossing the words over her shoulder as she left the room. "It's here."

"Wh-" then he could sense it too; the Hunger, a concentrated presence of dark void, and just outside. He dashed after her.

Tarva was attacking an odd figure indeed. It was her curse, there was no mistaking that, but it had taken the form of a black human shape, haloed by a harsh, bone-white light. A strange mask with glowing oval specks all over its surface, fringed with stiff white hair, covered its face. Gann had seen that mask before, awash with other colours, and broken into three pieces.

Scythe clashed against scythe as Gann raised his hands and called an elemental. There was no answer.

No time to ponder that now. He knew that at least arrows worked and his hands flew as he nocked one to his bow, aimed and fired. The arrow vanished when it struck the glowing chest, but as the faceless shape staggered for a moment, it was clear it'd had an effect.

Another arrow, another instant's pause, and this time, Tarva was in position to take the opening and brought her scythe down hard. Inhuman and silent, the Hunger split in half, fell back and disappeared.

"Tarva!" the urgent voice was like Safiya's. Gann turned, and saw the Red Woman come out of the room. "Forgive me... I tried to find you before _he_ did."

"What's going on?" the half-elf asked her. " _He_ is clearly the Hunger, but where are we and why?"

"Myrkul lied. When you tore your soul from the Wall, the spirit-eater remained within you. But if you fight the Faceless Man here, in the depths of your soul, if your will can conquer his, you could end this. You have the fragments of the mask. Do you know what they are?"

Tarva shook her head.

"Each fragment is an essence - mine or the Boy's. Araman's. And the final fragment, the one you found in the Wall... that fragment is _his._ As long as you possess all three, he will fear you." Her eyes, so like Safiya's, were both afraid and hopeful. "You can use them to force him to remember. You can restore him to what he was, and end his torment forever."

"How?" Tarva asked.

"His hunger is scattered, feeding at will... manifested in this dream as hooded mockeries of the priest he once was. You have seen this already, preying upon your memories, on faces you love – or hate, perhaps – but you must protect them. They are expressions of your soul, as I am of his. Surrender them to him, and part of you dies.

"Destroy the manifestations of the Hunger, and chase down the Faceless Man. Corner him, in a place where he cannot run. And we will be there at the end... to make him _whole_ again."

Tarva nodded, determination in the set of her head.

"But I do not understand how you were drawn here," the Red Woman said, addressing her words to Gann. "It is counter to everything I ever understood of Soul Theory."

Well, the resemblance to Safiya certainly showed there. "The Dreamer's Heart," he said, and would have added more, except that Tarva interrupted him.

"We're wasting time."

The Red Woman looked at her gravely. "I promise you - I will find you again, before the end."

And then she was gone, leaving behind only a shimmering dream-portal. "It wouldn't take much more for me to hate these," Tarva muttered.

"After you," Gann offered.

She shook her head. "Together."

"Together."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The portal spat them out in a courtyard surrounded by walls of crumbling stone. It was very warm; warmer than a Rashemi summer or Immil Vale, and equally dry. The very light was strange. It was blue as dusk and difficult to see far, even though a burning white sun hung at the zenith of a sky coloured like... like...

... well, like him, actually.

The sky of Tarva's soul was the same colour as his skin, and even under the circumstances, he could not help but be flattered.

"Watch out for Qara," Tarva warned him, readying her scythe. "She never did learn to watch where she flung her spells." A Fireball punctuated her warning, thrown by a red-headed girl from amid a small group of other spell-casters. Gann recognised most of them from Tarva's dreams, and they were already under attack by the Hunger-shades.

Tarva spun into the fight, crying out a challenge intended to draw the robed things away from her former companions. It only partly succeeded, but when the slender elf girl – Gann had only seen her once before, and couldn't remember her name – turned herself into a bear and the mage Sand became an iron golem, there was no way the manifestations could reach the little gnome with his invisible instrument and the incautious Qara anyway. Bear, golem and weapon master simply mowed their opponents down, while Gann provided support, Qara did her best to burn both ally and enemy to ashes, and Grobnar's contribution was a nasal, but surprisingly catchy tune.

"Never should have let him practice with Deekin," Tarva muttered to herself as the final embodiment of the Hunger fell. Out of the corner of his eye, something seemed odd about her face; when he looked directly at her, it was gone. And she... she looked taller. "Grobnar, what did I tell you about playing the Doom Song?"

"Skeletons in robes and armed with scythes..." the gnome burbled happily, paying no attention at all, "why, that reminds me of the time..."

The bear's form shimmered and broke apart, leaving the elf behind. "I could sense nothing of those creatures," she told Tarva, with an air of imparting immortal wisdom. "They were like voids - most unnatural."

"They burned easily enough," Qara shrugged. "Let's hope more show up."

"More... Oh, gods." Tarva raised her head. "Shandra!"

There was no answer, but the ring of steel on steel could be heard from another corner of the courtyard. And then from another. Tarva hesitated a moment, then chose the second direction. As they approached, the shapes of the Hunger almost seemed to materialise out of the mist, intent upon a tall, black-haired man who wielded a warhammer. He fought furiously, lacking Tarva's cool precision, and he was outnumbered, the greater reach of the scythes forcing him back. A spell Gann recognised – one of Kaelyn's favourites – shot from the mists and imbued him with bronze light.

"Casavir!" Tarva cried, and rushed to his aid. One of the manifestations suddenly sprouted an arrowhead in the centre of its forehead. That wasn't Gann's arrow.

The tawny-eyed Bishop eased out of the shadows and prepared to fire again as Tarva's scythe swept a lethal arc about her. A battle cry of "For Clan Ironfist!" heralded Khelgar joining the fight; Neeshka appeared, stabbed a robed back, and disappeared again with a flick of her tail.

With seven of them there, the manifestations really stood no chance.

"They've run off already?" the dwarf complained. "I was just getting warmed up!"

The tiefling patted his head. "It _was_ a lot of fun. Shame they don't carry any coin."

The veiled gith stepped out of the mists. " _Know_ that those abominations were but mere shadows of your true enemy - be on your guard."

Bishop rolled his eyes at that. "With all the enemies you have hounding your tracks, I'm surprised you're still alive."

"My lady," Casavir addressed Tarva, near-worship in his voice. "Those things were evil, yes, but desperate as well. You could sense it too, could you not?"

She inclined her head, and asked, "Shandra?"

"I heard more that way," Gann told her.

She turned away from the group without another word. Just before Gann followed her, though, Casavir lunged forward and caught his arm. His expression was intent. "Thank you," he told the hagspawn. "Thank you for keeping your promise. For protecting her, where I could not."

"She does not need a great deal of protection," Gann said, freeing himself, "but the sentiment is appreciated."

He darted after her – Sand called out, "An attempted devouring by a horde of undead creatures - yes, one of the _many_ 'benefits' of your company," as they passed him – and Tarva sped up as the dark laughter of Ammon Jerro drifted to them.

They rounded the corner, and came upon two people trying to hold against the Hunger-shades. Gann knew Ammon Jerro, of course, and recognised the eldritch blasts that flew from his fingertips – and that meant the blonde girl, her short sword even less useful against the manifestations than the paladins' warhammer, had to be his grand-daughter, Shandra Jerro.

The robed figures were forcing them back toward the burned wreck of a building. Shandra was visibly wounded, her left arm curled tightly about her waist, and her sword-arm shook as she blocked a scythe-stroke that would have taken off Ammon's head.

Tarva was running, and he was only a step behind her when one of the manifestations appeared behind Shandra and raised its scythe. She didn't see it. Tarva called a desperate warning as Gann put an arrow to his bow string, but there was no way she'd be able to dodge or he could take it out in time – even Ammon's magic would be too slow –

There was only a blurred instant left, and in it, Ammon acted. One step right, shoving Shandra off balance, filling the space she had occupied.

Accepting the blow of the descending scythe.

"Grandfather!" Shandra cried out as the old man broke apart, a bloodless, inorganic split like stone cracking along a seam, and disappeared a moment later. Beside Gann, Tarva staggered.

Gann's arrow lodged itself in the empty eye-socket of the grinning skull. He reached for a healing spell for Shandra as she hurled herself, at another of the foes. Tarva, recovering, swung her scythe to cut through a third. One started for him; the half-elf stopped trading blows with one of the manifestations and chased it down before it reached him.

"What _is_ it about you that attracts so much trouble wherever you go?" the blonde girl tossed the question out through clenched teeth, her sword locked against a scythe, trying to push it back.

"Shards," Tarva said, and spun back to attack the shape that was forcing Shandra down. "Curses. Beshaba's personal attention. Does it matter?"

When the last manifestation fell, and the Hunger woke nearby, they both felt it. "Ready?" Gann asked.

"Just one moment," Tarva said, and turned to the blonde girl. "Shandra... I'm sorry. I should have..."

She rolled her eyes. "Gods, you can be frustrating. Are you going to accept responsibility for moving all of Faerûn, too?" She made a flapping motion with her hands, the sort of thing Gann had seen children do to chase chickens out of a garden. "Stop beating yourself up over things you can't change, and go get your soul back."

Tarva's mouth opened... then shut again.

"Good advice," Gann said. "Shall we?"

"Yes," Tarva said, and they crossed back through the misty courtyard. She glanced at the surroundings, and shook her head. "All the work that went into this place... a whole dragon's hoard paying for it... and this is what it looks like?"

"It's not r- a dragon's hoard?"

"We climbed a semi-dormant volcano, looking for some fire giants, but we took the wrong path and ran into a red dragon instead. She would've helped us with the fire giants... but she took offence when her hoard was far too shiny for Neeshka to resist." A roughly-cobbled path led up a slope from the courtyard and the Keep proper. "Here," Tarva said, readying her scythe.

And the Faceless Man rushed towards them. He brought his scythe down in a fierce arc that surely could not be withstood – but Tarva was there, and so it was. He was faster than her, and stronger than he had been before; larger, too, his light brighter - but she was determined, and she was not alone.

His arrows were definitely having an effect – and every time the Faceless Man tried to break away from Tarva and get to him, it left him open for a vital few moments. He alternated between trying to kill Tarva and attack Gann, when choosing one or the other would surely... and that was it. The Faceless Man was strong and swift, but he was not _smart._ Even for an embodiment of destructive Hunger.

That was their advantage, and they used it.

When he disappeared, beaten once more, a portal appeared at the door of the Keep.

"Ready?" Tarva asked, once she'd caught her breath.

"Almost," Gann answered, and turned his head very carefully. Earlier, he thought he'd seen something strange. Now he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. There was a shining green and gold mark on her forehead, just where Chauntea had kissed her.

And she _was_ taller. Usually the top of her head lined up quite neatly under his chin; now, her glowing forehead was on a level with his nose. "I think your goddess is meddling," he voiced his conclusion.

"That's probably a good thing," she said, and they passed through the portal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact – Safiya says nothing in this sequence because I have no idea what she says. Every time I try to talk to her inside the soul, I get an ordinary conversation instead. Across several play throughs, including cheating her into the party. Does anyone know what she actually should say?


	76. Again Akachi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't until about my fifth play through that I managed to save Daeghun. He's the furthest from your starting area and surrounded. It's as though the game just doesn't want you to save him. So I made a huge effort, because I was desperate to know what he said... do you know what you get? What Faerûn's Worst Father says? "You are well, I trust?" Seriously.   
> Then again... this is Daeghun we're talking about here. He's practically falling to his knees imploring you to tell him you're okay.

Another layer deeper, and here Tarva was fully as tall as he. If he looked directly at her, he could see that glowing mark on her forehead; out of the corner of his eye, though, she was a dark shape wreathed in leaf-green light. As they got their bearings, the white and merciless sun beat down on them. It produced little light, but its heat was intense. Gann, child of Rashemen's snows as he was, did not see how anyone could endure such a summer.

"West Harbour," Tarva said, turning slowly around, looking at the burnt-out houses and the brown, dying grass. "I should have expected it, after Crossroad Keep and Safiya's Academy."

"I would not have thought that a building full of Red Wizard corpses held any great sentimental value for you."

"Gann, I think that's the first modest thing I've ever heard you say. Of course it does – oh." It was something behind him – he turned, and saw the husk of a small building. "That... that's Father's house. Destroyed. And – _gods_. The scar. That's where they'll be." And she ran.

He followed her along the rutted path, trying desperately to keep up – but for all her clanking, heavy armour, she was very swift. She almost leapt across a narrow ditch, only the ruins of a bridge and a little mud in its bottom suggesting that it had been a creek once.

He had dreamed of this place before, but then it had been green and whole, not this scorched rubble. The sounds of battle drifted to his ears, and when he turned the corner behind Tarva, he saw them, hazy in the heat; three men with swords defending a blonde girl with arcane energy crackling at her fingertips. The robed manifestations had them hard-pressed, but even so, Tarva didn't stop to help them.

"Father!" she called desperately, and if an answer came, it was drowned beneath the clashing of weapons and the mage's cry as she loosed her spell. " _Father!"_

"Tarva, they need help!" Gann shouted after her.

"I have to... I have to _find_ him," she called back, and disappeared into the shadows between two ruined houses.

He cast one glance over his shoulder at the group as the bald man felled a Hunger-shade, and hoped they could hold out. If he could have summoned elementals here, he would have left one to aid them – but that was impossible. He hurried after Tarva instead.

Beside a makeshift archery range, a brown-haired elf was besieged by near a dozen of the skull-faced things. He was using his bow as a makeshift club in a flailing attempt to keep them off him.

It wasn't working.

Tarva rushed into the battle. Her first stroke was so savage it cut through two of them; her second took the head off a third. Gann sent a healing spell at Daeghun, then set to surrounding him and Tarva with protections. Daeghun was vulnerable, and Tarva – faced with the threat to her father, she'd become completely reckless, throwing herself into even the smallest openings as she tried to get to him.

The manifestations took ruthless advantage of that fact, creating tiny gaps to herd her away from Gann and from Daeghun – the shaman called a warning, urgent and full of fear, but she didn't hear – her scythe only just blocked a strike.

"Lass, _think!"_ the elf exclaimed. He didn't sound afraid as much as exasperated. Either way, it did seem to steady her. She ducked under a swung scythe and barged the manifestation with her plate-clad shoulder; Gann's arrow took out another before it could take the opening Tarva had left.

A change out of the corner of his eye.

Daeghun was gone.

" _Father!"_ the word was wrenched from her, a cry of such grief and rage that it staggered even the shades of her Hunger for a moment. She was upon them before its echo died, an avenging fury whose face was colder than Rashemen's winters. She had lost all her precision, her perfect technique – she hacked at the creatures wildly, her scythe-blade carving unpredictable paths, just as likely to slice air as enemy.

His fingers were beginning to numb as he loosed arrow after arrow, and the number of robed figures didn't seem to be lessening.

Then the three men with swords whom they'd earlier passed, rushed past Gann and into the fray, and the blonde girl appeared by his elbow and started chanting.

The shortest of the men – barely more than a boy, really – bashed a manifestation with his shield and called out to Tarva, "Lizardfolk, dark dwarves, githyanki, and now these things – I liked it better when West Harbor was boring."

A hulking bald figure, his face twisted in an unpleasant sneer, retorted, "Only fools would want to live here among the muck and slime." His strangely jagged sword cut through another shade.

"Bevil?" Tarva sounded utterly bewildered, but that was far better than before. "Lorne?"

The third man swung his weapon; the shade it would have hit disappeared in a haze of arcane energies. The blonde mage giggled briefly, then started shaping another spell.

"It doesn't matter how many we kill, they still seem to think Harbourmen are easy targets," the third man said. He seemed rather more effective than the other two at fighting, having cleared a path to Tarva and put himself at her back.

Not a place Gann would choose to be under these specific circumstances; she was still far from self-possessed. But he managed to dodge the few blows that came his way, and between the six of them, they destroyed the rest of the manifestations without losing anyone else.

"Cormick," she identified, or greeted, the man who'd guarded her back. "Amie." The blonde girl.

"Did you see how powerful my spells were?" the mage asked, with the excitement and enthusiasm of the very young. "Master Tarmas will be so impressed."

Tarva wasn't listening. "Father..."

Gann pushed past Lorne to stand beside her. "You know that wasn't him, any more than that was Ammon before. I mourn the loss, for they were part of you..." and then he started to babble. Anything to lift that lost look from her eyes. "...but I am certain that your father is safe and well, if far from here, and once we reclaim your soul, we will go and find him, and I will lay the heads of ten dragons at his feet as an appropriate bri-"

With a flare of harsh light, and harsher Hunger, the Faceless Man revealed himself. He had fed himself well on the fragment of Daeghun, it seemed; he was almost too bright to look upon. The place where he stood was charred nearly black against the sere and dying grass, and a sound like a screaming child came from it.

Tarva raced to meet him, apparently once more fully in control of herself. Even from a distance, Gann could feel her cold-burning fury that (he thought) this Hunger should dare to touch her father.

She was all the fiercer for it. Gann fired arrow after arrow at the blazing white figure of the Faceless Man as Tarva struck at him again and again, an assault that was as dangerous as it was graceful. Each time his scythe-blade struck, it was blocked with hers, or she was simply elsewhere, ready to exploit the opening.

The masked shape staggered back, and Tarva swung her scythe upward in a vicious slash, finishing it off. Gann hastened to her side, light gleaming in his hands as he shaped a healing spell and touched her with it, erasing the small hurts she'd taken from the manifestations and from the Faceless Man.

Tarva looked down at him – and that was really rather unsettling; what purpose, precisely, did all this growth and glowing serve? – and one corner of her mouth rose. "Gann, you're glowing."

He stretched out his hand and inspected it. There did seem to be a faint nimbus of greenish light about it. "I think that is merely the reflection of your own divine radiance." She shook her head in mild perplexity. "There is a mark, here," he indicated her forehead, "where your goddess kissed you. If I do not look directly at you... you blaze with light, exactly that green-gold she appears to favour. As I told you, I suspect she is meddling."

"A blessing," Tarva voiced Gann's conclusion, and murmured a soft prayer, if it was not thanks. "Oh, Lady."

"She did say she would shield you," Gann said. "And she... she loves you." It was a very strange idea, that these gods he'd always dismissed as useless and disinterested could care that deeply for a mortal, but the way she'd looked at Tarva was not something he could mistake or deny.

Then again... A vain and selfish hagspawn like himself had learnt to love her; it was not so remarkable that a god might also. "But I don't see why your goddess would have chosen to cast any sort of a blessing, however minor, on me."

"Because I love you. Because I asked her, last night. Remember? And because she loves you, too." Her head turned. The softly shimmering portal had appeared a little way beyond the deep scar in the earth. "But this is neither the time nor the place for a discussion of Chauntean theology..."

"No," he agreed, as two figures, barely visible in the mists, appeared on either side of the portal.

"Tarva," the Red Woman addressed her calmly as they approached. "I promised I would be here, and so we are. The Boy and I, preserved in the pieces of mask you carry..." She nodded as Tarva brought out the fragments. "We are all that remains of my Akachi, memories of his brother and of his love. A single pebble may cause an avalanche; a single memory can trigger complete recall."

"He has forgotten us," the Boy said. "He has forgotten _himself_. But you've gathered the mask. It is his essence - and it is whole again."

The mask rested in Tarva's hands, whole and the exact replica of the one the Faceless Man wore. Gann glanced up at her face, to see how she felt about all this, and found it covered by the mask.

Her hands were empty.

The whole thing was profoundly disturbing.

The mask turned to look at him, all its white, blank eyes staring. The face of the Faceless Man, the back of the Hunger when it manifested - every time he'd seen that shape, it had been trying to kill him. He tried to suppress his rising panic. This was Tarva, his beloved, who would not permit the Hunger to touch him, who was in control...

"Oh, gods, Gann. _Don't_." And it was her voice, muffled and ringing strangely hollow through the mask, begging him not to fear her.

"You have cornered him," the Red Woman said, as Tarva pried at the edges of the mask, trying to remove it. "He waits beyond the portal, in the deepest part of your soul. Defeat him there, and you can force him to remember."

"He will no longer be empty. His Hunger will end," the Boy said. "You will be free."

"And this mask you've _stuck_ on me?" Tarva asked. "Why am I wearing this essence of Akachi on my face?"

"It will protect you from his Hunger," the Red Woman said. "At least a little."

"If it can shield against the Hunger, I'm not the one who should be wearing it," Tarva told her. "Gann is –"

"It will not bond to anyone else," the Boy said. "You already carry what remains of his soul."

"Use the Hunger against him, if you can, and take back from him what he has stolen from you. When he falls," the Red Woman said, "we'll be at your side. To finish this. To restore him." The two of them vanished as suddenly as they'd appeared.

Tarva turned to him. It took a moment to rally under that white, many-eyed gaze, and he knew she saw it. "Gann, I –"

"Forgive me," he said. "It's just –"

"I know." She looked away, back at the ruins of the village, at the archery range where her father had fallen. "It's nearly over, one way or another."

"I insist on my happy ending."

"I love you," Tarva said softly. Her fingertips brushed his cheek, a caress as light and fleeting as a passing breeze. " _Survive._ "


	77. The Mask of the Betrayer

Gann had known from the first how destructive the Hunger was. He had seen it tear apart elementals, felt its touch upon him more than once. He had watched the shadows grow under Tarva's eyes, the increasing prominence of her bones as the curse gnawed at her flesh, and he had felt her presence slowly swallowed by its darkness.

He had seen her soul, tortured and broken, torn from the Wall of the Faithless. He had helped her defend herself against the manifestations of the Hunger. First at Safiya's Academy, where they had pledged their love, just as he remembered it. Then at Crossroad Keep, where she'd been betrayed to the army of the King of Shadows, and it had lain in ruins. Finally West Harbour, where she had lived most of her life, razed to the parched and dying grass.

Every time they had stepped through the portal, it had taken them to an earlier part of her history, a deeper part of her soul. Each had been more damaged than the last, eloquent testimony to how the Hunger had been slowly devouring her from the inside out.

But it was only now that he stood in the core and the centre of her soul, choking on the smoke, that he _understood._

Gann ignored the drifting ash that stung his eyes. Everywhere he looked... It would have been a beautiful place, once; the gently rolling hills in the distance, willow trees trailing their boughs by the quiet river, the wide, gracious fields... it would have been green and living.

Once... but now it was a place of death, where nothing alive could remain so. The huge white sun shone down from a sky black with smoke, the hills were burning, the riverbed was cracked and baked hard as clay, the trees were lightning-blasted husks, the fields were an ashen wasteland – everywhere he looked, there was ruin and desecration.

Even Tarva beside him, who was the mirror of the Faceless Man in all save a few details. She blazed green and golden; his nimbus was the ivory of dry bones. Anything more was merely a blue-black shadow at the heart of the light, where the spirit-eater was black. The heights were the same. They both wielded a scythe. The masks were identical.

He would not be so terribly afraid of her – for her – if he could only see her face.

"I look like him, don't I?" Her voice was flat and certain, not asking a question but confirming what she already knew.

He tried to answer, but his mouth was far too dry. He'd never experienced anything like this heat, and he was so thirsty... he knew, now, exactly how every victim of Myrkul's Furnace had felt.

The shining figure tilted her head, as if listening to something Gann could not hear. "I know where he is," she said after a moment, voice hollow and alien. She started walking, swift, purposeful, towards the dry river. Her feet did not stir the black dust which covered the arid ground.

Every step he took following her kicked up more ash, which inevitably found its way into his nose, mouth or eyes, clinging and irritating. He wiped at his eyes with a hand that glowed faintly golden green, but found no relief.

They came to the riverbank. The grim shape of a burnt willow loomed over them; although he ducked his head, its withes brushed over Gann's face. They seemed to move of their own will, like thin snakes that left an ashy trail behind them, and he shuddered at their touch. It was wrong, it was all so wrong, so dead, and it was _her soul_...

They walked along the desiccated bottom of the riverbed. It was very quiet; Gann's footsteps were the only sound, and even they served only to underline the silence, not break it.

A sudden cracking noise, and Gann almost jumped out of his skin. Beneath his boot was the skull of a bird, bleached white and streaked with dark grime, staring reproachfully at him from a fractured, empty eye socket. He stifled the urge to apologise to it – or to her.

The riverbed widened and deepened, into what should have been a lake. Through the drifting ash, Gann could spy a bright point of white light.

"Stay clear if you can," she said, looking back over her shoulder, "and b- _Gann!_ " She shoved him roughly aside, green aura blazing as the Faceless Man's scythe came down where he had been standing, and carved a smooth arc down through her shoulder.

It should have taken her arm off. Instead, her light died for an instant, the dry air grew, impossibly, even hotter, and when the green nimbus of her goddess's blessing returned, it was not as bright as it had been, and the Faceless Man burnt more strongly.

All this Gann saw between one breath and the next, as Tarva wrenched her scythe up just in time to block Akachi's next strike. That, then, was how this battle was to be fought...

He wanted to charge him, dagger in hand, but he knew exactly how stupid that would be. No point in trying to summon anything here, in the depths of her soul; he reached instead for something to make the Faceless Man _hurt_ for what he had done. He called lightning as a dark shadow burst from the green shape and reached for the white one.

Only a short time before it disappeared again, but she was noticeably brighter for it. Scythe struck against scythe and locked; he forced her back and she kicked viciously at his knee as Gann set an ice spell on him. Enough to stagger him for a moment, allowing the half-elf to whirl free and bring her scythe down in a long, curving stroke. It cut through the Faceless Man as though he was no more than air, stealing precious spirit energy from him and leaving him duller for it.

They fought on, through the scorching heat and the suffocating ash-laden air. Each spell and strike slowly weakened the Faceless Man, dimming the harsh bone-white radiance until it was no more than a firefly glimmer. Gann knew a fierce stab of exultation; they were going to beat him, and she would be freed –

\- then Akachi raised his hands and channelled the Hunger. Just as Tarva had learnt to use the curse in strange ways, so too had the Faceless Man; but he had had centuries to learn, and he _was_ the Hunger in a way that Tarva would never be.

He raised his hands, calling the Hunger to awaken, and all about him, glowing motes of spirit energy were sucked from the dead landscape of Tarva's soul. As the white specks spiralled toward him, she fell to her knees, her light almost quenched.

Gann was running towards her before he knew it, all fear for his own skin forgotten. _How_ could he stay at a safe distance when she... when she... No. It _would_ not be so.

He stooped down beside her, steadying her, pulling her to her feet. The mask stared blindly at him. "...stupid... _said_ stay clear..."

"I cannot."

Bloated with all the energy he'd taken in, incandescent with ivory light, the Faceless Man was doing _something_ , and it could not be good for them...

"Tarva - "

"I see it. I just..."

"- if you need it, take from me."

" _Never_ – oh, gods." The Faceless Man flared brighter still, and when Gann could see again, he was not alone. Four smaller copies of himself brandished their scythes – they looked identical, but Gann knew them. He had seen these aspects of the curse, how they had touched and shaped Tarva – smaller than the Faceless Man, for she had learnt to suppress them to a greater degree.

There was Instinct, who had remorselessly driven Tarva to feed whenever there was opportunity, who had imperilled all of their lives more than once.

Fury – not Tarva's cold, controlled anger, but something more heated and almost as dangerous. That one he had only ever glimpsed, for her own rage had overridden Akachi's in most cases; but he suspected it had been that unrelenting Fury that had turned the Hunger back on her when she had baulked its will.

Despair... oh, yes, he knew that one. At the gates of the City of Judgement was the only time she had known even a moment's hope. All the time he had known her, that despair had haunted her, and only her sheer stubbornness had kept her going. Well, stubbornness, and perhaps himself.

Almost innocuous, as though no more than the others were, the insatiable Hunger stood among them. She had gained some measure of control over it, even bested it when she had forced it to heal Gann and the Wood Man... but in the end, it was the master here.

It should not be so. It _would_ not be so.

"Get clear," the green figure ordered him, as the white, masked shapes stalked towards them. She spread her arms, challenging them all to come closer and feed her, as Gann put an arrow to his bow. The curse burst from the faint, verdant glow, sucking hungrily at the smaller form of its own Instinct, siphoning its strength to feed Tarva.

Her scythe swept out as Gann's arrow struck home, and Instinct faded. Nothing more than a shadow against the ivory light of the three others as they crowded about Tarva – wait... three?

Only long years of journeying through Rashemen's woods saved him then. He threw himself down and to the side, as the Faceless Man's scythe whistled through where he had been a bare moment ago. He scrabbled at his boot, freeing the dream-dagger – if the Faceless Man was intent upon him personally, he couldn't spare the time to cast, and his bow was worse than useless, but even if he couldn't use the dagger effectively against a scythe, he could at least keep Akachi occupied and distracted from Tarva...

... he hoped.

The dream-dagger stretched, becoming a short sword as Gann feinted left – and this version of the Faceless Man was just as unintelligent as the others, or else he would never have fallen for that – and ran right. He risked a brief glance, and saw the brightened green-gold radiance amid three points of pale light, one weaker than the others. She was holding her own, then.

He was – barely – doing the same. The Faceless Man was so fast, and so strong, and (he was not ashamed to admit it) terrified him nearly out of his wits. There was only one thing he feared more, and that was losing Tarva.

He ducked under the white-lit scythe, sword lashing out in a slow, clumsy stroke that only just connected with his foe. The Faceless Man paused his attack, in a manner that was terribly familiar, and even as Gann threw himself into the small opening, his pulse hammered almost sickeningly fast, and his mouth tasted like old blood.

The Faceless Man summoned the Hunger.

Gann tried to flee, but he – he was not fast enough – and it caught him. The black tendrils touched him, held him immobile as a pulsating cord formed between them... and the Hunger began to devour him.

It was more than death. It was unmaking, gradual and painful dissolution, as though everything bright or real in him was a barbed arrowhead being slowly pulled away, tearing him apart from the inside out.

Perhaps he screamed. He tried to, but there was no strength left in him, no will, nothing save a small, failing regret, and the memory of her love...

And then Tarva's presence rushed through him like a cleansing flood as she used the curse to pour her own spirit energy into him and replenish what the Faceless Man had stolen. A luminous green sun, her light glorious beyond words, interposed herself between him and the Faceless Man, crying her defiance and outrage that he should dare to touch her beloved.

It was stupid. It was reckless. She was expending all her precious energy on him, and the Faceless Man could take from him faster than she could restore. Her efforts only prolonged the agony, weakening them both.

It couldn't continue.

But the Faceless Man was intent on draining him, Tarva was fighting the Hunger to make it heal him, and Gann himself...

...was still holding the dream-dagger.

And he could move. Slowly, shaking with the excruciating effort, the rope in a spirit-eaters' tug-of-war, Gann curled his fingers tighter about the dagger and wrenched himself upright. "Grant me strength," he murmured, or thought, and realised with a shock that it was the first prayer of his life.

And it was answered.

One moment, just one, free of the Hunger's teeth, and Gann had never moved as fast as he threw himself past Tarva and buried the dagger in the Faceless Man's chest.

It was like stabbing fire. No resistance, but, oh, it _burnt..._

A savage green blur across his vision, and white light flickered – one, twice, and again - about the dagger.

Then, simply and without fanfare, it vanished.

They had... won?

_They had won._

Noise became sound as the dagger fell from Gann's burnt hand, and sound became her voice, calling his name. His own voice came hoarse and rasping from his parched throat as he tried to answer her. "I...is it... over?"

The green-gold nimbus was a cool mist about her hands as she took his. "I th- no. I know. Almost." There was no sense of the Hunger when she touched him – in fact, Gann could barely sense it at all, and that was more than enough to confirm the truth of her words.

She helped steady him, and Gann looked down at the shadowy figure on its hands and knees, all that remained of the Faceless Man.

Of Akachi.

Glowing green vines burst from the ashes, binding him to the earth. He did not resist; he didn't even move.

"Nefris," Tarva called softly. "Ahrraman."

And they were there, the Red Woman and the Boy, just as they had promised they would be, vivid and real against the scorched landscape. They, too, looked down on him, with pity and with love.

"You have _pursued_ us, Faceless Man, and we have hidden. In your hunger and pain, you have forgotten what you are, but _we_ remember," the Red Woman said. "We _always_ remembered."

The Boy nodded, a curiously adult gesture. "You are Akachi, my brother, who gave me my name."

"You are Akachi, my beloved, who kindled love in a heart that held none," the Red Woman said.

Quiet and sure, her voice no longer muffled by the mask she still wore, Tarva said, "And you are Akachi the Betrayer, who turned against your god and waged the Crusade for love."

Akachi was still, but there was an concentration to him.

Gann was hardly breathing.

All three, Ahrraman and Nefris and Tarva, spoke at once. " _Remember_ , and be whole again."

The mask covering Tarva's face split into three balls of light. The Red Woman vanished when the scarlet one passed through her, as the Boy did when the teal light spiralled through him. The final light, the grey one, flew directly to Akachi and sank into his chest. It was followed only a heartbeat later by the others.

The vines released him as the dark figure of the Faceless Man – no longer any such thing – flushed with colour, becoming real and solid.

Akachi, the man he had been so long ago, restored and whole and free, stood. His dark eyes were haunted by remembered pain, but a fragile smile broke from the corner of his lips. He bowed to them.

Then, in a burst of silver light, he was gone.


	78. Again Chauntea

"I can't believe it," Tarva said, her eyes luminous and faintly visible through the haze of leaf-green light.

A soft breeze woke and swirled about them; above, the black sky was no longer flat and alien, but a roiling mass of blue storm clouds that covered over the burning white sun.

She was smiling at him. "It's gone – oh, Gann, I can't tell you how _good_ it feels-" She tossed her head back and stretched her arms up, as though she would touch the stormy sky.

Lightning struck her – a blinding stab of light followed immediately by the rolling of thunder, a sound like deep, joyous laughter, and then by rain.

Steady, healing, cleansing rain. It washed the ash and grime from his upturned face, and the cool, damp air was full of the wonderful smell of rain on hot earth. The rhythmic thrumming of the raindrops was very nearly the most beautiful sound he had ever heard -

"Gann."

\- no, that was far, far better. He opened his eyes and looked down at his beloved, free of mask and curse and green-gold light. The lightning, it seemed had removed her scythe and armour, leaving her clad in a loose grey shift, barefoot, her dark hair already soaked though; finally, just herself.

"Have your eyes always been so green?" she asked, softly and almost incredulously, as Gann reached out and gathered her to him.

"An important question indeed. Hold still," he said. "Your eyes are not quite so mirror-like as Kaelyn's, but they will serve." He gazed down at her, at her thin, pale face with all its dear strength, at the sheer joy that curved her lips and danced in her eyes, and the love that shone through it all. She reached up and brushed a stray lock of wet hair away from his forehead, and her hand lingered against his face.

"Well?"

"Hm?" She had asked a question, and he had completely forgotten. "Oh, I suspect so. I find myself... somewhat distracted." His head tilted down until he could feel her quickening breath against his lips. "I have been waiting for th –"

Gann was interrupted by her mouth, soft and urgent against his.

 _Slowly_ , he told her, with lips and teeth and tongue, without words. She was free, and there was all the time in the word. Time to taste the sweetness of her mouth, to feel her shudder when he nipped the sensitive tip of her ear, to lick the cool rain from the hollow of her throat and hear her moan in response.

Time to stand, his forehead resting against hers, eyes closed, listening to her breathing and the gentle harmony of the falling rain.

"Gann," she whispered finally.

"I know," he answered. They could not stay here forever; their bodies lay in the Fugue Plane, and their friends would be worrying, with no real way to know that they had triumphed. They had to go back.

Reluctantly, Gann opened his eyes.

Her soul had been a scorched, ruined place, burnt to ashes. Now, the rain had laid the ashes to rest, and all around them, small plants that glowed faintly green had begun to sprout. It was a promise, a new beginning. So much damage could not be undone instantly, but the healing had begun.

"Oh, Tarva. _Look._ "

She turned in his arms, back resting against his chest, his arms still about her waist. "Chauntea," she breathed. A portal stood where Akachi had fell, a vine with crimson flowers twined about its base. They drifted towards it. "I don't want to go back yet," Tarva said softly.

"Nor I," Gann answered. "But you promised me all the rest of your days, and I do intend to claim them."

"Together, then?"

"Always."

-0-0-0-0-0-

It was a curious sensation, to be acutely aware of his body once more. There was pain (nothing compared to the spirit-eater's attack), where he'd struck his head when he'd fallen. His muscles felt rather stiff as he slowly sat up.

There was Tarva doing the same thing, with Kaelyn hovering over her. He would never have thought, before, of using words like 'babbling' or 'blathering' in connection with the cleric, but there really was no other way to describe her constant stream of questions and exclamations, which Tarva was ignoring as she got to her feet.

Safiya lolled against Okku, her eyes open and staring into the distance as the Ravens Hukhin and Myunni pecked at her head. Tarva was at her side in an instant; Gann and Kaelyn followed more slowly.

"All's well, little one," Okku rumbled, and Gann had never though to hear such joy in Old Father Bear's voice.

" _With the curse ended and her task completed, the Founder... well, we have never encountered a situation like this,"_ Hukhin croaked.

Myunni was a little clearer. _"Those you knew as the Founder, Nefris and Lienna are no more. Their memories and their knowledge, the parts of their soul, have all passed to Safiya. They are hers now... but it will take some time for her to adjust to them. Lord Okku asked us to help."_

"It was bad enough when she saw Akachi," the bear-god added dryly, as Tarva, reassured that Safiya would be fine, stood once more. Gann put his arm around her waist; it was not as comfortable when she was in full plate, and he had to be mindful of her scythe, but then she linked her fingers with his, and it didn't matter.

Kaelyn roused her feathers at the name. "I do not understand where he went, there was so much I wanted to say to him, and to ask -"

Kelemvor's presence lay only lightly on them now, with a sense of power held in check, as he and Chauntea appeared once more. "Akachi has gone to his proper rest at last, among the False souls of old. You have ended his torment, Tarva El-Auri; you have done what gods thought beyond their power."

"Perhaps it _was_ beyond our power," Chauntea said, her smile warm and full of quiet happiness, "but I _knew_ my daughter could end the Hunger. With a little help."

"More than usual, Lady," Tarva said.

"Oh, yes," the goddess admitted. "Child, Myrkul wrought far more when he created that curse than even he knew. Even in resistance to the Hunger, you ended a god; what you could have become if you had embraced it instead..." She shook her silver head. "We all agreed it was better to help you as much as we were allowed."

"We did not anticipate the chaos you willingly sowed in my grey city," Kelemvor said gravely. "For that, there must be judgement..." Chauntea murmured his name, as plea or rebuke. "But I will not turn my hand against you. Your Crusade was born of the hatred of a dead god, the desperation of a Faithless soul, and the betrayal of my lost Doomguide –" Kaelyn visibly quailed a little at that, "and the _good_ you have done redeems much." Kelemvor's voice was, suddenly, very kind. "You have won your long-sought freedom... freedom from the shard in your chest and from the curse in your soul. From now on, you may choose your own path."

"And your own companions to walk it with you... but I do not need to be a goddess to guess that one," Chauntea added, with an unmistakeably _bawdy_ wink. It rather shocked Gann, but not as much as her next words. "Tarva, may I borrow this handsome man of yours? I think we need to have a brief word in private."

"Up to you, Gann," the half-elf said.

Gann eyed the smiling face of the goddess with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. "Not for long, then. And not far."

"I won't even take you from your beloved's sight," Chauntea said, as Gann reluctantly disentangled himself from Tarva, and followed the goddess a few steps away. It did not look very private... but then she made a gesture, and he could not even hear Kelemvor's voice as he addressed Tarva.

The only way he could describe her smile now was... mischievous. "Gann-of-Dreams. Did you know that there are any number of gods and goddesses who'd like to tempt you into their service? You are far too rare a man to be left to rot in the Wall of the Faithless."

It appeared that there was a limit to his vanity after all. He would never have anticipated compliments, verging on flirtation, from a goddess.

He wasn't sure how he felt about it, either.

"Take hedonistic Sharess, for example; she's rather impressed by your many conquests. You know that Sune, goddess of love and of beauty, has a stake in you already, and I believe Lliira the Joybringer has taken an interest as well. Even my Lathander, god of the dawn and new beginnings... I overheard Tymora and Beshaba – good luck and bad luck, respectively – arguing over which of them had had a greater influence on your life." The goddess shrugged. "But then, there is little over which they will not squabble. Some of the other dark gods, too, but I don't think you would be content to serve evil. Oh, and avoid Cegilune. The goddess of the hags is not fond of hagspawn to begin with, and she'll never forgive you for destroying the Slumbering Coven."

Tarva was helping Safiya to her feet. The Red Wizard blinked a bit, and then hugged her friend fiercely.

Gann remembered... "In Tarva's soul, when the Hunger had me-"

"- you prayed for strength." Chauntea said, suddenly more serious. "I know. I... intervened. A little more than I should have, perhaps. Don't mention it to Kelemvor." She tossed her hair. "And there's me. I, too, would very much like to number you among my faithful. For your own sake, yes, but for Tarva's too."

Tarva.

The goddess's voice was very gentle. "She is my loyal worshipper, and I will take her to my realm when she dies. If you take no patron god before your death, the Wall will swallow you. I cannot permit her to come after you... and she will mourn deeply. I love her, Gann," Chauntea said softly, "and she's suffered so much already. That is not the ending I want for her."

Across the cobblestones of the grey City of Judgment, Tarva looked for him; her dark eyes, full of love and joy, met his.

"Only accept me," the goddess said, "and not even death will part you." She smiled, then. "But you have time to think on this, and to decide... you'll have a long life together, and my blessing, either way. I will watch over you; I cannot strip all the sorrows from your life – nor would I if I could - but they will be small in comparison to your happiness. About a hundred years," she said thoughtfully, the light of mischief in her smile, "and children. At least ten."

Wait, what? Children?

 _Ten_?

"Hagspawns – don't. Can't," Gann spluttered.

The goddess laughed, and the city of the dead rang with her merriment. "My dear, dear Gann, I wish I had a mirror to show you your face."

She was joking, then, and Gann felt somewhat relieved. Not that – well, he didn't mind – but – but – _ten_.

"It's true that your kind is usually sterile as mules, but I _am_ the goddess of fertility. I'll make it work somehow." She chuckled again. "Now, we'd best return."

A goddess with a sense of humour... he hadn't anticipated that, either. Still rather dazed, Gann let her shepherd him back to where the others stood.

Safiya's eyes were dancing. "Gann-of-Dreams, you have my solemn promise that I will never threaten to Disintegrate you again." The Red Wizard threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. "Well, unless you really deserve it," she added, looking up at him.

"You're well?" he asked. "The Ravens didn't – "

"I have never been so well," Safiya said, with a contentment that was entirely new. "Akachi is free, and the voices I have heard all of my life are silent. My soul is my own, and so is my life." She smiled as Tarva took Gann's hand, and addressed her next words to both of them. "I could go back to the Academy, I suppose, but I don't think I'm ready to give up the pleasure of your company yet. So wherever you're bound next..."

Tarva cast a glance at him, as Okku paced up to them. Her free hand scratched at the thick fur behind the bear's ears. "Well, if you're not sick of traipsing around the countryside after me, I'd like to go home. To Neverwinter, and Crossroad Keep, and West Harbour... find those who survived and –"

"Of course," Gann agreed, although he would have agreed as readily if she'd said she wanted to go and have a snowball fight in Cania. By her side, nothing was impossible.

"Sounds good," Safiya said. "Promise me we'll visit some of those fascinating Illefarn ruins you've mentioned?"

"Ah, little one. I wish I could, but we must say our farewells here," Okku rumbled, softly and with a strange note of tenderness in his deep voice, as Tarva knelt to place her arms about his neck and bury her face in his fur. "I am bound to Rashemen," he said, "and I must ensure that my kin return home.

"I will miss you, Okku," the half-elf murmured.

"I was _right_ to trust you, and I make you this oath: by my name, by the talisman you bear, by your blood shed and mingled with mine, my den is yours, my kill is your meat, your cubs are my kin. If you call me, I will rise from my sleeping to your aid."

One of the bear's pale eyes rolled up to look at Gann. "Shaman, all debts between you and the spirits are undone. Call upon me or my kin for any power or favour you require, and we will answer, unless-" and King Bear bared his teeth – "you do not care for this little one as you ought, and then I will rend you limb from limb."

"A dire threat indeed," Gann laughed.

"Safiya," Okku said. "You have more honour than I would ever have thought a Thayan would possess. I will not invade Thay until you are dead, lest we meet."

"A wise choice," the Red Wizard answered, Kaji flapping behind her right shoulder.

"Bah! You twist my words." He shook his garishly-furred head lightly, and Tarva released him. "We will meet again, I hope." Okku nodded a respectful farewell to Kelemvor and Chauntea, or perhaps Kaelyn, who stood silent and abashed between them. The shining ranks of the telthor army closed around him, and then they disappeared into the streets of the grey city.

"My realm lies at the centre of all things," Kelemvor said. "I will send you to Neverwinter when you are ready."

"Kaelyn?" Safiya asked, clearly more curious than concerned.

"Do not trouble yourself over me," the half-celestial answered, her wings pulled tightly against her back. "My... my fate lies here."

Tarva hesitated, then said, "Fare well, Kaelyn."

"You have done more than I dared hope," the cleric said. "We may see each other again."

"If I might?" Chauntea asked Kelemvor; the silver mask nodded, and she lifted her hands. "Tarva, my daughter, be _healed._ " Golden light, tinged with green, rose about Tarva, and the hollows of her face filled out as the goddess undid all the damage of her long months of Hunger. "You – all of you – have my blessing."

Kelemvor's gloved hands made a small gesture, and silver power blurred about them.

"And Gann," Chauntea said, somehow clear despite the magic swirling about them, "think about what I said."

He thought she referred to her offer of eternity with Tarva, but then the goddess winked at him as the silver light took them away...

...and suddenly he wasn't so sure.


	79. Epilogue I : Neverwinter

One moment, the Fugue Plane. The next, a blaze of silver light. A moment's wrenching disorientation, and they stood in a small room with wooden walls. Tarva beside him, her hand in his; Safiya close by, holding Kaji; in front of them, a tall dark-skinned woman in a grey robe and hood.

She smiled warmly at them. "Welcome. I am Kerta, first of Lord Kelemvor's servants in this temple. I was informed of your arrival – you are Safiya," she bowed slightly to the Red Wizard, then to Gann as she said, "and Gannayev-of-Dreams. Lady El-Auri..." and her smile widened, "I attended your trial by combat. It is an honour to serve you now."

The respect and awe in her voice... well, it was certainly something Tarva deserved, and there was no way the priestess could know how much; still, it was a little disconcerting. And 'Lady'? Tarva had told them of her adventures, but he began to suspect that she had glossed over exactly how important or famous she had become.

"Ah... thank you," Tarva replied, after a moment's uncertainty. "Where –"

"In Blacklake; the temple's construction was barely begun when last you were in Neverwinter." Her smile turned a little wistful. "You... you stood before my lord. If you care to tell it, I would eagerly hear more of this tale."

"Forgive me," the half-elf said, "but my companions and I are very weary, and I really should report to Lord Nasher as early as possible."

The priestess nodded. "I will send a messenger to Castle Neverwinter. There are many petitioners and diplomats about, but I expect that Lord Nasher will make an effort to see you as soon as possible. Where shall I tell them you are staying? The Moonstone Mask, the Drum?"

"Does... does Duncan Farlong still own the Sunken Flagon?"

"That dive in the Docks?" The shocked expression on her face quickly gave way to understanding. "Oh. I remember hearing - yes, he's still there."

"Thank you," Tarva said quietly.

The priestess crossed to the door and called a name, giving her instructions to the person who answered it.

"So, this is Neverwinter?" Safiya murmured, letting Kaji struggle out of her grasp. "After all one hears... somehow, I thought it would be larger."

A small smile touched Tarva's lips at that. "You might wait until you get outside before making that kind of judgement."

The priestess returned. "That's all settled. You'll be on your way, then?"

"Yes," Tarva said. "Thank you for your kindness, Kerta. I will try to return and tell you of our meeting with Kelemvor."

"Thank you," the cleric replied, as she ushered them to the door. "And... be welcome home, Lady El-Auri."

They stepped out into the city. In the warmth of the blue twilight, a few people were still about; several scurrying purposefully across the vast expanse of cobblestone, and at least one courting couple meandering along. Golden light shone from the wide windows of the many tall mansions that lined the square, and laughter drifted from the nearest.

There was a tugging against his other senses, too; the spirits here were neither strong nor numerous, and not a single animal among them. This was different to Rashemen indeed.

"Kelemvor's temple," Tarva muttered, turning slowly about. "The theatre on the lake, scene of Grobnar's greatest triumph aside from Construct, the temple of Lathander –"a flicker of a smile – "Aldanon's house..."

"We've got company," Safiya warned, as a shadowy figure approached them, and turned out to be an older man in chainmail and tabard.

His hand was on his sword hilt, and his voice was suspicious. Gann supposed they were a rather odd and well-armed group to be standing around... nobody in Mulsantir would have batted an eyelid, but there really was no comparing the crowded Rashemi town with this large, peaceful city.

"Can I help you?" he called out.

"We're just on our way to – Sergeant Brockenburn!" Tarva sounded both surprised and glad. "You old relic, they still haven't retired you?"

"Wh – Tyr's balls. Lieutenant El-Aur – I mean, Captain – uh, Knight-Captain – no, Lady..."

"That's all right. Whichever one you prefer."

The man shook his head, either in denial or wonder. "Been away so long, and now you're sneaking into the city in the dead of night? Not on my watch. I'd drag you off to the Watch headquarters to see Marshal Cormick and Capt'n Brelaina, but you look about done in. Headed for the Sunken Flagon, I take it?"

"Yes, Sergeant."

He walked with them to the district gates, explaining that he would go no further while he was on watch, and chattering away about various pieces of city gossip he thought Tarva would be interested in. She wasn't, Gann could tell; just tired. It wasn't surprising, really. They had woken before dawn, in Rashemen, then crossed a gate to the land of the dead, where they'd fought, ransacked Vaults, been half-crushed by the god of the dead, tore her soul from the Wall of the Faithless, beaten the Faceless Man four times over within her soul, then been thrown halfway around the world to Neverwinter. It was only surprising that they were all still upright.

They bid Sergeant Brockenburn farewell, and walked through a part of the city that was busier and shabbier than the first.

"The Merchant Quarter," Tarva explained. "Keep a hand on your purse, or it may disappear, but you won't need a hand on your weapon until we reach the Docks."

"That bad?" Safiya asked.

The half-elf shrugged. "It depends whether Captain Brelaina has had the men to keep them clear. I cleared a lot of scum off the Docks, but there'll always be more of that kind about." Then she smiled slightly. "Now that I think about it, though, I don't expect we'll have any trouble. Even Neverwinter's heard of the Red Wizards, Safiya, and your affiliation is less than subtle."

"So we shall just hide behind Safiya, then?" Gann sighed. "And I thought I was so terrifying."

Tarva's thumb stroked over his. "Well, they won't know what to make of you. Some of them might be scared, I suppose."

"No, no. It would be a pleasant change not to be greeted by suspicious townsfolk with torches and pitchforks."

They encountered none of those in the Merchants' Quarter, although a number of people did urge them to come and buy, and a fair few also watched Safiya cautiously. They crossed into the Docks just as twilight turned to night. Here it was almost like Mulsantir; lots of shady people lurking in shadows, lots of rowdy drunks spilling out from the taverns even at this early hour, the smell of all sorts of waste floating on the tide...

"This feels familiar," Safiya said, her thoughts apparently running in a similar vein to his.

"Awful, isn't it?" Tarva replied, but she was still smiling. "Never mind, we're nearly there. That's Sand's shop... I wonder if he –" she swallowed, and changed what she'd been about to say, "he's still got that elemental running it?"

"Not Leomund's Merchant Elemental?" Safiya asked, her eyes wide and curious.

"Sounds familiar." Tarva shrugged slightly. "To be honest, I was more worried about Ember when he mentioned it."

"That's a very tricky spell to get right - I don't think I know more than three wizards at the Academy who could cast it. I'd like to meet him."

"If... if he survived," Tarva said, then stifled a yawn behind her hand.

"So sleepy, my love?" Gann asked, suppressing his own, answering yawn. "Anyone would think you'd had a long, busy day."

She darted a fond glance at him, but said only, "Look. We're here."

Gann released her hand to open the heavy doors for the two women, letting the light and the sound of people laughing and shouting at each other spill out into the street. He followed them into the inn, which seemed surprisingly clean and spacious for the area. It was very full; Gann hadn't imagined so many people could be crowded into so small a place. From behind the bar, a man with unruly brown hair tousled about his ears – pointed as Tarva's were – was haranguing a group of youths by flapping a dirty apron at them.

"Right, you louts, you can just calm down or I'll – oh, what do you want? Inn's full up!" The last words were addressed to the three of them, without the half-elf man even turning to look.

"Uh-Uncle," Tarva choked out, her voice rough and faint. Gann had no idea how it carried among the noise of the tavern, but it did.

"Uncle?" The man stiffened, then turned slowly, as if afraid he'd startle her away if he moved too quickly. His brown eyes fixed on her. "Sweet Tymora's grace..."

In a flash, he'd enveloped Tarva in a tight bear hug – probably only her armour was preventing him from breaking her ribs.

The patrons jeered. " 'Oo's that, Duncan, yer doxy?"

"When's the last time you saw a whore in armour, Kerrow?"

"Er..."

"Or backed by a Red Wizard?" Safiya injected sweetly, watching both men pale and try to hide behind their tankards.

Duncan raised his head. "Show some respect, you worthless whoresons, or I'll stop letting you drink on credit." They shut up immediately – clearly this was a dire threat indeed. "This is the Knight-Captain of Crossroad Keep!"

There was silence a moment longer.

Then one of them cheered, "To Lady El-Auri!" and downed his mug. The rest followed suit. Duncan held Tarva out at arm's length and inspected her carefully.

"You're looking well, lass. But dog-tired. You can tell me where the Hells you've been tomorrow. Hungry?" She shook her head, and he nodded his, drawing them into a quieter, side-corridor. "Right then. The problem is, I've only got the one room empty, and it's on the small and dingy side." Duncan flashed an unexpectedly charming grin at Tarva. "I used to put Grobnar in it."

Her answering smile was small but genuine. "Speaking of companions..." Tarva turned back to them. "This is my father's half-brother, my uncle Duncan Farlong. Duncan, Safiya, a Red Wizard of Thay."

Duncan shook her proffered hand warmly. "Since you're travelling with Tarva, you're clearly not the sort who's about to turn me into a toad."

"Not without good reason," Safiya smiled back at him. "If there was a fly annoying me, say..."

"And Gannayev-of-Dreams, a shaman of Rashemen," Tarva introduced him.

"Gann," he said, and took Duncan's hand in turn. The half-elf had a very distinct feel to him – Gann could spot a protective-father-type a mile away. He gripped Gann's hand very firmly. Gann knew that gambit, too; a small test of strength. He returned the pressure. With a suggestion of respect in his eyes, Duncan nodded very slightly and let go.

"Did I just miss something?" Tarva asked.

"I hope you ladies don't mind sharing," Duncan said, leading the way upstairs. "Like I said, there's only one room free, so Gann can take mine."

"Uncle-"

"Lass, I hardly use it nights anyway, and one like this, I'll be lucky to make it by lunchtime. You'll probably be up by then, anyway."

"Depends when Lord Nasher sends for me," Tarva said, as they paused outside a door. "Uncle... I'm so glad to see you."

" _You'_ re glad to see _me?_ " Duncan shook his head. "We all thought you must be dead. Except Daeghun – that man never gives up."

"Father?" Tarva asked softly.

"We stripped that ruin down to the bedrock looking for you," Duncan said. The words were simple, but there was something behind them that spoke of the desperation of their search, and how terrible it had been when they had not found her. "We knew that Khelgar, Neeshka and Sand made it out. W-"

"Sand? Sand made it?"

"You couldn't kill that viper with a rock," Duncan confirmed, with the casual rudeness of a close friend. "He keeps an eye on the Keep and reports to Lord Nasher regularly." He went on. "We found Bishop, Casavir, Qara and Grobnar there. Of Ammon Jerro and Zhjaeve, there was no sign. You... there was just your knight's cloak, tattered and bloody. Nothing to resurrect."

"Uncle... I'm sorry."

Duncan shrugged it off. "It doesn't matter. You're here now. I'll send a pigeon to West Harbour – they're rebuilding - but there's no telling where Daeghun may be. He spends most of his time out in the Mere. Looking for you."

Behind them, Safiya yawned; Duncan grabbed Tarva into another fierce hug. "You had me worried, you know. Don't do that again."

"I'll try."

"Sleep well, lass." He turned away. "Lad, you're with me."

"One moment," Tarva said, which saved him from doing it. Gann caught her hand as she reached for him, drawing her closer.

A soft choking sound from Duncan turned into a much noisier one as Gann murmured, "Dream of me," and Tarva responded by rising to her toes and claiming his lips.

"Always," she said, after a brief and lovely moment.

"Good night," Safiya wished them with an amused smile. Tarva followed her into the room, casting one last glance over her shoulder before the door closed behind her.

"Now, that's something I never thought I'd see," Duncan muttered as he led Gann onwards. "I – gah-"

"I imagine this is the part where you threaten to hunt me down and kill me painfully if I ever do anything to hurt her," Gann supplied.

The innkeeper snorted inelegantly. "Not me, lad. That'll be Daeghun – well, he won't make any threats, he'll just do it. He's very protective of Tarva." He paused outside a door. "But I know her better than that. She couldn't be more Daeghun's daughter if they were blood – she doesn't trust easily. If she chose you, you're worthy of her, and that's all there is to it." Duncan twirled Gann's dream-dagger around his finger with an ease that spoke of long practice, as did the apparently effortless way he'd lifted it without Gann noticing the innkeeper rummaging in his boot. "Any old fool can see that you worship the ground she walks on. Right, lad?"

It was a very fair summary. "Yes," he replied. "I do. Ah... may I have that back?"

Duncan looked at the dagger as if he'd only just realised it was there. "Sorry. Bad habits die hard." He tossed it back and opened the door. Gann was not used to throwing knives around, and only just managed to catch the dagger without cutting his fingers. "Here's m'room, lad. Pardon the mess; it's hard enough keeping the inn clean without worrying about my personal space as well."

The scattered clothes and dirty aprons didn't bother Gann; all his attention was on the longed-for sight of the little bed. "I'll leave you to it," Duncan said cheerfully. " 'Night, then."

-0-0-0-0-0-

It is far too long before Gann can cross into Tarva's dream. She hurries towards him, hands held out in greeting, soft rain misting about her. "Forgive me. I thought... well, Safiya wanted to know what happened."

"Ah." He smoothes a stray lock of hair back from her brow. "And you told her the whole story?"

"I may have – ah-" her voice falters as his lips brush against her ear – "omitted a _few_ details."

"Glad I am to hear it," he murmurs. "A question, my Lady El-Auri?"

"Please, Gann. Don't."

"Ask questions?" But he knows. "You do seem to be of a certain... eminence here. Why does that bother you so greatly?"

She looks gravely at him. "Gann, didn't you ever get tired of being a hagspawn in Rashemen? Of everyone there looking at you, judging you, treating you as some kind of thing instead of a person?"

 _Kepob,_ a voice whispers in the back of his head. He nods slowly.

"It's the same sort of thing – although in the opposite direction, I suspect. _Lady El-Auri_ is a very public figure. The Knight-Captain of Crossroad Keep. Stood trial, killed the Luskan champion, got the Hosttower mages kicked out of Neverwinter. And yes, I did those things, but I don't want... it's not who I am. Especially not to you."

"No," Gann agrees. "The other thing, my love..." he sees how her eyes shine at _that_ title and smiles as he takes her hand, "is all this rain."

"Oh," she says, "does it bother you?"

"Not at all. I was merely wondering if you had a touch of water genasi blood in your veins."

"For all I know," she shrugs. "But if you'd ever seen what drought does to farmland, you would understand what a miracle rain is."

"I saw your soul," he says, tugging gently at the dreamscape about them until great trees crowd closer, raising their branches to shield Gann and Tarva against the rain. The roots of one of them twist themselves into a sort of low couch; thick green moss runs over it to cushion the wood and make it a fit resting place.

Gann draws her down to it; she curls up against his side and nestles her head on his shoulder. Silence closes in about them, as comfortable and natural as any speech could have been. They had survived so much, but now... they could simply enjoy each other's company.

Time drifts past. Impossible to tell how much, in a dream, and it doesn't really matter.

"Gann?"

"Hmmm?"

"What did Chauntea say to you?"

An inevitable question, and Gann smiles to himself before he recounts the conversation for her. She is grave at first, when he speaks of the Wall of the Faithless, but then he tells her what the goddess had promised. When he finishes, she says nothing, then –

"Ten."

"Ten," he confirms. "Is your goddess noted for her sense of humour?"

"Not... exactly," Tarva says. "She... she probably meant it. Ten," she says again, in a slightly different tone, and then there is nothing Gann can do but kiss her.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"A _private_ audience," Gann grumbled. Waiting for Tarva in a small room with attentive guards was starting to wear on his nerves.

"You have said that twice in the last hour," Safiya commented, seating Kaji on her lap and inspecting his wings critically. "You could always go back to the Flagon and make yourself useful there. I'm sure Duncan's busy this afternoon, with so many guests leaving-" She was interrupted by a voice just outside, raised in irritation.

"Nevalle. I don't have the components. Unless you are prepared to sign an extremely expensive requisition order and wait for three months, it simply cannot be done." The speaker pushed open the door, revealing himself as a small, dark-haired elf.

"Sand," Gann said, recognition catching him rather off-guard.

Tarva's former companion halted in place. His pale eyes were very wary. "I don't know you."

"No, but we have a mutual friend."

Safiya rolled her eyes and got to her feet, sending Kaji flapping. "No need for games, Gann." She held out a hand in greeting to the other wizard; he took and bowed gracefully over it. She looked equally amused and flattered by the gesture. "My name is Safiya, and this is Gann. We travel with Tarva El-Auri."

"Anyone can drop a name," Sand said, as a door swung open behind them. "It wouldn't be a difficult one for a Red Wizard of Thay to discover."

"That almost sounded like a compliment," Tarva said from the doorway. "Mellowing in your old age, Sand?"

Gann was decidedly impressed by how well the elf held his aplomb as he turned to face her. "Dear girl, I am gladdened beyond words to see you safe. It is only a pity that your idea of what constitutes a humorous observation has remained as unchanged as your ability to collect a motley group of misfits about you."

"If you think Safiya and Gann are notable, you should have met the others I travelled with."

"A Red Wizard is a formidable ally indeed. And – Gann, was it? I confess, you have me baffled. I cannot place you at all," the wizard admitted.

"Gannayev-of-Dreams," Gann introduced himself with a far more florid bow. "I am a shaman and a dreamwalker - I recognised you from Tarva's dreams."

"You dreamed of me? I'm touched," Sand said wryly.

"Don't be," Tarva replied, equally wry. "Most of the dreams Gann spied on were nightmares." She crossed to Gann's side, adding, "And as far as race goes, he's a hagspawn," as he slid his arm about her waist.

Sand raised his eyebrow a fraction, and Gann didn't think it was due to the casual revelation of his parentage. "A hagspawn dreamwalker and a Red Wizard. I feel I must enquire how these were the less flamboyant accomplices to your latest adventure."

"Tactfully nosy as always. There was a god of bears and a winged Doomguide turned Ilmaterian... but I still owe Duncan the whole story; let's get him, and I'll share it."

They crossed back through Blacklake, the Merchant Quarter and the Docks, a walk that seemed to take considerably less time now that it was daylight, he was more familiar with the territory, and not dead on his feet. Tarva commented on some of what they passed, but mostly they were quiet.

Not so the wizards. "-a student of the school of Transmutation, unless I am much mistaken."

"You are quite correct," Safiya answered. "Tarva mentioned that you followed the same discipline."

"I do, and I am considerably impressed by the level of sophistication in the Art the creation of your familiar implies."

"Why, thank you." Several long-ago and rather half-hearted attempts at flirting with Safiya had revealed that the only true chink in her armour was her pride in Kaji. Interesting, that the elf had uncovered it in their first conversation. "It actually wasn't that difficult," Safiya continued, "once I worked out the correct variation of Guinle's Equivalency to counteract Koltine's Paradox."

"But how did you –" The conversation took an extremely technical turn; Gann understood perhaps one word in five, and usually only the ones of three letters or less. He and Tarva exchanged glances as the heated discussion continued. They were apparently completely forgotten.

Well, it suited him. He made the most of the opportunity and stole a kiss – if theft it could be called, when Tarva so willingly gave it.

Duncan was eager to join them at Sand's shop, although he insisted on bringing a bottle of wine – "talking is thirsty work, lad, and listening can be, too" – and pouring out five glasses as they settled around a table.

Kaji took a sip of Safiya's glass, declared he didn't like it, and nearly spilt the whole thing.

Tarva, Gann and Safiya exchanged glances, and it was Safiya who began the story.

Gann would never have begun the tale with Akachi's lover Nefris, but it shouldn't have surprised him that Safiya did. It seemed as much a clearing and re-ordering of her memories as a recounting of all that had befallen Tarva since she defeated the King of Shadows.

Gann took over the narrative at key points – the ones Safiya hadn't been present for, and explaining the importance of the dream sequences, for example, or just what the spirit-eater curse had meant to the spirits of Rashemen – and Tarva contributed a few, but Safiya told most of it.

The wine was barely touched when she finished, such had been the total absorption in the room.

Duncan slammed his fist on the table. "I always knew Bishop would come to a bad end ("Indeed," Sand murmured), but I'm glad that bastard's properly gone this time."

"I think I would doubt your sincerity and your sanity alike," Sand said, "if I were unfamiliar with your propensity for attracting trouble, and if this... wild tale did not make sense of the unusual readings I have been receiving every time I tried to scry your location."

"Well," Safiya said thoughtfully, "with her soul on a different Plane to her body, Dwynnej –"

Sand interrupted, his narrow face coming alight in a way that reminded Gann of a hunter hot on the track. "Illuminating as Dwynnej's work is, her Tacroy Hypothesis does not allow for the addition of a god-cursed dead construct bound to the physical –"

"Is that the time?" Duncan's words were rather hurried. "I'd better be getting back to the Flagon and finish changing your rooms around."

A small tabby cat jumped down from one of several overcrowded bookcases to claim the seat Duncan had vacated. "I see Jaral has finally deigned to grace us with her presence," Tarva commented, offering her fingertips to the feline, who sniffed them daintily and turned her head in disdain. "And she still doesn't like me."

Sand shrugged. "Cats are contrary by nature, and she's worse than most. It is probably why she chose me; I never could stand cats." The tabby hissed violently at him, jumping up on the table and surveying them all with a regal air. Then she prowled over to Safiya, stared intently at the Red Wizard, and jumped down into her lap.

Safiya stared in a helpless kind of way as the small feline lay down, looked up at Sand, who simply shrugged when Jaral started purring, and visibly resigned herself to the situation. It offended Kaji, who took quite a bit of soothing and several compliments from Sand until he settled down.

He and Tarva did seem rather superfluous here, Gann thought, and when Safiya started asking Sand about his Leomund's Merchant Elemental, he shot a look at Tarva. "We're going back to the Flagon," she announced, and pushed back her chair. Gann followed suit, but neither wizard paid any attention, debating the relative merits of two spells – or something like that.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The Flagon's bath house was something new to Gann. He was used to either an unfrozen river or sometimes a proper Rashemi steamhouse. A tub full of hot water was an unaccustomed luxury indeed.

They took an early dinner in the much larger room Duncan had chosen for Tarva and Safiya. Neither spoke much; there was a curious feel to the air, like a building thunderstorm, a tense expectation that kept coiling tighter and tighter about them, and was not dispelled when they put the empty plates aside.

If anything, it intensified.

Then Tarva looked up at him, her eyes wide and dark as night itself, and what he read in them... "Gann. Will you... will you stay?"

So long he'd waited for her. Desire, long suppressed but never truly absent, surged within him, burning through his veins. Still he retained enough presence of mind to shake his head and answer, "That would not be wise."

"Oh," she said simply, eyes downcast as she accepted his refusal. "I understand."

"I don't think you do, my love," Gann said, and laughed for the sheer, intoxicating joy of it. He bent and easily scooped her up in his arms. "You see, it is to _this_ room that Safiya will return when she has finished talking to your friend, and _I_ would much prefer not to be interrupted."

Her hand traced a soft caress over his cheek. "I thought, for a moment -"

"I would have you with me this night and all others that follow it. For the rest of our lives, Tarva." He was certain of her, but nevertheless added, "If that is your... desire."

Tarva was silent a moment; he could feel all the emotion surging within her as she weighed her words. Her voice was soft, a little shy, a little playful. "And if I said no?"

"I would remind you that you issued the invitation... then I would put you down and kiss you good night. I'd walk away, back to my lonely room and its empty bed. I'd close the door behind me, and then, probably, I'd cry myself to sleep."

She smiled, a slow-blossoming kindling of light and love. "Well, we can't have that."

"Indeed, no. My eyes would get all puffy."

As she laughed, he carried her to his room and the waiting bed.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Later, very much later, they lay entwined; most thoroughly (and delightfully) exhausted, but not yet willing to surrender to sleep and to dreaming. In the darkness, she was the steady flame of the Dreamer's Heart, the touch of skin against skin. Her voice was warm breath against his ear, soft and wondering, "Is it always like that?"

"Never," Gann said, feeling something of the same wonder. "Never before." Threading his fingers through the heavy silk of her hair, a sudden certainty within him, he added, "But between us, I think it will be."

She shifted away; even in the gloom, Gann enjoyed the striking contrast of dark hair and white skin as she reached for the blankets.

"No," he said, and caught her arm.

"Orders, Gann?"

He kissed the soft skin on the inside of her wrist and drew her, unresisting, back down to him. "If you are cold, I will warm you. But if you have blankets, you will cover yourself, and that I simply cannot allow."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Gann remained wakeful long after Tarva's breathing had fallen into the deep, slow patterns of sleep. Simply to hold the woman he loved as she slept was too great a joy to lose to dreaming, and he reflected on just how much he owed to her. He had come a very long way from the shallow dreamer in his Mulsantir cell...

...he succumbs eventually, of course, and Tarva is waiting for him. She has something to say, he can see.

He makes a point of kissing her breathless first.

"Gann," she says, clinging onto him and trying to catch her breath. "Gann, I've been... wondering how to introduce you to my friends – and my father. I think I made rather a hash of it with Duncan and Sand. I... I want them to know who you are to me."

Gann still cannot quite believe how openly she is willing to display her love for him – not that he minds at all.

" 'Companion' and 'friend' both fall far short of the truth. 'Lover'," she says, and blushes a little, "is a little better, but it seems... well, not quite right. And I suspect my father will go up in flames when I tell him about you; I'd rather not provoke him more than absolutely necessary. The best description for you I could come up with is 'the-man-I-love-and-intend-to-spend-the-rest-of-my -life-with' and that's fifteen syllables. Khelgar would never cope."

"A difficult dilemma indeed," he says lightly, tracing the lovely line of her collarbone. He can tell that she is building up to something, and he wonders... "Have you a solution?"

"I do," she says softly. "There is a much shorter version of that last one, but I thought I'd better check with you before I started introducing you to everyone as... as my betrothed."

Betrothed. The word echoes beautifully, and the implications are even more lovely. "My love... my _betrothed_. I will wear that title joyfully – but not, I trust, permanently. In fact, I shall hope to hold it for a very short time indeed."

"Hmmm," Tarva turns her joyful face up to his to be kissed. Her next words are murmured against his lips. "We'll make sure everyone who matters knows you as my betrothed, and as soon as they do, we'll change it."

"Sounds confusing," Gann says lightly. "I thought you were trying to make things clearer for your friends."

"It was never the _entire_ point."


	80. Epilogue II : Crossroad Keep

Gann blinked at the clear light of early morning streaming in through the shutters. Tarva lay drowsing beside him, too awake to dream, too asleep to stir as Gann propped his head up on his hand and looked down at her.

Her pale skin was nearly flawless – no unusual thing in a fighter, despite all the injuries she'd taken over the years. Wounds left to heal naturally might scar; wounds treated by spell or by potion never did.

He traced the line the shard had carved into her; she shifted slightly under his touch. Up from her right hip, growing thicker and deeper as it cut across her stomach, the older scar was a clean, straight cut. The other, a silent reminder of just how ruthless Nefris had been, looked as though some great beast had delicately inserted its claws at the centre of her chest, and then tried to tear her apart.

His hand covered the livid, jagged scar between her small breasts. "Never again," Gann breathed his instinctive reaction to the scars, and his promise. Never again would she suffer such a wound, if he could prevent it, and if he could not, he would still be at her side to heal it.

His hand rose and fell with her slow breathing; her heart beat beneath his palm. She was very still...

"Tarva," Gann said softly, laughter rippling in his voice, "you can stop pretending to be asleep now."

Her lips curved into a smile; her eyes did not open. "I could, yes."

"It's important," he said, and she looked up at him, a slightly quizzical expression in her dark eyes. "If you cannot see me, you cannot properly appreciate how handsome I am."

"Really?" Tarva asked, running her hands over his shoulders and chest. "That's not the impression I received last night."

"Hmmm..." Gann dipped his head to kiss her, slowly and luxuriously. "While we're on the subject, how are you feeling?"

"Wonderful," Tarva said, and stretched herself as if to check the truth of her answer. The manoeuvre commanded his rapt attention, and then she added, "but a little stiff."

"What a coincidence."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The sun was high in the sky as Gann held open the door of Sand's shop for his betrothed. The elf's rather nasal voice spilled forth, loud and slightly hoarse "- and then he added fire beetle belly."

"You're not serious!" Safiya's words were very nearly lost among her laughter. "He _didn't_ –"

"I assure you, I am utterly in earnest. He did."

"Didn't he realise –"

"Not until it exploded."

The two wizards sat exactly where Gann and Tarva had left them the night before. Four wine glasses held the same place on the table, and the liquid in them and the bottle was at the precise level it had been. The only visible difference was Kaji, who no longer fluttered over the table, but was instead snoring loudly on a bench.

Quite interesting, considering the homunculus didn't actually need to sleep.

"Good morning," Tarva said, her voice soft as usual – but both Sand and Safiya jumped, thoroughly startled.

"M-morning?" Safiya rubbed at her eyes. "You only just left."

Gann pushed open one of the shutters, letting the sunlight stream in; both Sand and Safiya blinked and shielded their eyes. "Yes, morning."

Sand sniffed. It seemed a habitual gesture, but then he choked, spluttered, and reached for a small pomander and buried his nose in it. "I'm very happy for you, dear girl, and I suppose it's not above time, but please, for my sake, bathe afterwards."

"What?" Gann and Safiya were equally confused. Tarva stared for a moment, then her eyes widened and a suggestion of a blush coloured her cheeks.

"Oh gods, Sand, I'm _sorry._ I just didn't think."

The wizard waved his hand in graceful dismissal, even though he didn't remove his nose from the pomander. "I am somewhat inured; I do operate in the Docks. You merely surprised me."

"Translation, please?" Safiya said.

"I am blessed," Sand answered, "or perhaps cursed, with olfactory perception greatly beyond the ordinary."

"Rather like Okku," Tarva added, and then Gann suddenly understood.

"I am not greatly flattered at comparison with a bear," Sand muttered, "even a dead god of a bear, however keen his nose may be." He sighed. "But still you insist upon inflicting your idea of wit upon me... dear girl, please don't make me say it."

Gann had mercy on him "- Tarva and I were celebrating our betrothal last night."

It defused Tarva's faint blush and deflected Safiya into congratulations. "I'm very glad for both of you," she told her friend, "and for the legions of farmers with nubile daughters who can stop worrying now." Then she yawned.

There was laughter in the line of Tarva's mouth. "I was thinking about leaving for Crossroad Keep in a few days; will you be in any fit state to travel, Safiya?"

The Red Wizard recovered her poise quickly. "A night of conversation is hardly physically fatiguing – although I admit I haven't any spells prepared. I'll be ready whenever you are."

"I believe I will accompany you," Sand added, pushing back his chair and rising gracefully to his feet.

Tarva tilted her head. 'Really? But Sand, you hate it on the road – ow!" She cast a black look at Gann, whose elbow had come into sharp contact with her ribs.

"Of course I am coming with you, dear girl. Your Red Wizard friend is the most stimulating conversationalist it has been my pleasure to encounter in centuries. A little discomfort seems a small price to pay for continuing our discussion."

Safiya flushed nearly as red as her robe, and Gann smirked to himself. That was indeed the way the wind blew. How very interesting.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The afternoon of the second day on the road found them close to the keep – or so Tarva and Sand said. Gann, who was rather feeling the effects of two days in a saddle when he'd never ridden before, only hoped they were right. He was still grateful to be mounted, like Safiya and Sand, on one of the small, clever mules instead of the wide, grey monstrosity Tarva called a destrier.

Gann had gone with her to buy the beasts while Sand packed; he hadn't been surprised that Safiya opted to stay behind, and even less to find them in another heated technical discussion when they returned. They'd wrapped it up, and Duncan had exacted a promise from them to return – with Daeghun – soon. He also hugged Tarva until her bones creaked, and shook Gann's hand so hard he feared the tendons in his shoulder had been permanently loosened.

Riding was a much faster form of travel, Gann decided, and the additional aches and pains were worth it; the sooner they reached Crossroad Keep and a little privacy, the better...

He very nearly cheered when he spotted the low line of grey stone against the hills.

"Crossroad Keep," Tarva said softly.

"Glad to be back?" Safiya asked, as a low, mournful horn called from the Keep once, twice and again.

Tarva had opened her mouth to answer Safiya, but she shut it when the horn blew and shifted in her saddle, arrowing a sharp accusation at Sand. "You _didn't_ – "

The wizard seemed unconcerned. "I can neither confirm nor refute your claim, dear girl, until you have clarified just what it is I am accused of doing - or not doing, as the case may be."

"I know that particular signal," the weapon master said, her face set like stone. "I last heard it when Lord Nasher was sighted, retreating here from Highcliff. They sounded it for Sir Nevalle. They sounded it for me, returning from my knighthood ceremony."

"Your point?" Sand raised his slanted eyebrows.

"You arranged a formal welcoming party."

"Well, naturally one was arranged, although you do not have me to thank for this charming little piece of feudal tradition. I hear Lord Nasher's orders on the subject were quite explicit: as liege lord returning to your holding, it is only befitting that your vassals welcome you in the appropriate manner."

"Oh, gods."

Her reaction amused the elf, it seemed. "You surely did not expect you could simply sneak in like any other weary traveller, did you?"

"I'd hoped."

"That bad, my love?" Gann looked up at her as they neared the Keep.

"That depends. Sand, Lord Nasher said that the Keep was technically under Sir Nevalle's command, but that Khelgar – now one of the Nine – was responsible for most of the day-to-day running, along with Lieutenant Kana." Sand inclined his head. "Do you know if Sir Nevalle is currently at the Keep?"

"I believe he is," Sand answered her.

Tarva bowed her head. "Then yes, Gann – unless your tolerance for courtly formalities greatly surpasses mine – it is going to be bad."

"It's never been tested," Gann said, as his mouth kept curling into a smile no matter how hard he tried to remain serious, "but I vow to remain by your side and aid you through this _terrible_ ordeal."

Sand snickered as they passed a pair of sentries in armour and grey cloaks. "You may well come to regret that vow."

Twin ranks of soldiers in brightly-shining armour lined either side of the cobbled path that led to the portcullis. Their swords were unsheathed, held at a stiff, high angle, to form a kind of archway. Under the portcullis stood a blonde man, wearing a blue tunic marked with a stylised eye, and beside him, a blocky dwarf with a bald head and luxuriant brown beard. The man seemed entirely at his ease; the dwarf was shifting restlessly, a huge grin on his face.

"Dismount," Tarva said quietly, pulling her horse to a halt, "and follow my lead. Better yet, follow Sand's."

"I am so very flattered," the wizard replied in kind, slipping down from his mule. "Anyone would suspect I had had several hundred more years' experience with this kind of thing."

A groom appeared beside them, taking the beasts' reins; Tarva led them through the ranks of soldiers and paused just outside the gate. "Sir Nevalle Barbey," she greeted the blonde knight, bowing her head in respect, "Your Majesty, Khelgar Ironfist." Behind her, Sand bowed to a slightly deeper degree, a sardonic twist to his mouth. Safiya and Gann exchanged confused glances, already out of their depth, and then Gann bowed floridly and Safiya nodded her head in much the same manner Tarva had.

Sir Nevalle returned the salute, as did Khelgar beside him. "Lady Tarva El-Auri," they said, almost in unison.

"Permit me to introduce my companions," Tarva said, and glanced over her shoulder at them. Sand made a discreet little gesture, a movement that encompassed Gann, Safiya and himself, in that order. "Gannayev-of-Dreams, my betrothed –"

"Ye got _betrothed_?" Khelgar blurted out.

Nevalle hid his shock somewhat better, even as Gann stepped up beside Tarva and took her hand. He had a promise to keep, after all. "My... congratulations."

"Safiya, a Red Wizard of Thay."

"A pleasure, madam," the human knight said, his politeness belied to some extent by the wariness in his eyes.

"Thayans, now?" the dwarf muttered. "Lass, ye haven't changed."

"Sand, you already know."

"Indeed," Nevalle muttered, his tone more expressive of resignation than warmth.

"Such a welcome as I could only expect from the first of the Neverwinter Nine," Sand remarked.

"If you and your illustrious companions would care to follow me, an appropriate welcome has been readied in the Throne Room of the Keep." Nevalle lifted a finger; behind him, trumpets blared a bombastic melody, which a score of voices joined, and a flurry of flower petals drifted down from the battlements.

"Sweet Mystra," Sand muttered. "I always knew he had no artistic judgement, but I could never have dreamed the depths of excessive bad taste to which he could sink."

"Just keep walking," Tarva said, as Nevalle turned to lead them into the Keep.

" _That_ wasn't an appropriate welcome?" Safiya asked as they passed under the portcullis.

"Not at all," Sand said, and winced as one of the trumpets hit a sour note. "One cannot, unfortunately, be properly and formally welcomed in any span of time less than three hours."

Resigned, Gann looked all about him. He had seen the Keep in Tarva's dreams – upon the walls at night, or within its internal passages, or in ruins, symbolising the spirit-eater's triumph. This fortress... everywhere he looked was well-kept grey stone or brown wood, green grass, and smiling people, many of whom were calling Tarva's name.

They halted, only barely within the gates – as Gann noticed somewhat belatedly, the dwarf had waited for them instead of following the blonde man.

"Look, lass," he said, "ye don't want all that formal guff, do ye?"

"Not at all," Tarva told him, a fond smile dancing in her eyes.

"Thought not. Hey, Nevalle, we're off to the Tail!"

Nevalle halted his stately process. "But it's not befitting -"

"Ye can stuff it, Nevalle," the dwarf growled. "The Knight-Captain's back, which means she's in charge an' can do as she likes instead of sitting through all that business."

"Well, you've certainly learnt a thing or two about handling him," Sand observed, as the trumpets and voices trailed off somewhat disappointedly, "which is at least two things more than I thought you capable of learning on any subject."

"Shut yer craw, elf," Khelgar muttered. He threw his arms about Tarva's waist – which was as high as he could reach, and Tarva was a small woman – and muttered, "We've missed ye, lass. Ye can't imagine how much we've missed ye." He released her, grinning like a maniac. "Come on, then."

They approached a low wooden building; the swinging sign over the entrance proclaimed the tavern "The Tiefling's Tail."

Tarva repeated it. "What happened to the _Phoenix's_ Tail?"

"That man of yer uncle's, Sal... casualty of the siege, lass. Ballista." He opened the door for them. "They changed it because – "

A small ruddy blur rushed from behind the counter, shrieking "You're back! You're back, you'rebackyou'rebackyou'reback!" and finally resolved itself into the small figure of a tiefling girl hugging Tarva so fiercely her horns threatened to gore Tarva's chin.

"Neeshka," the half-elf said softly, smoothing some of her friend's rumpled red hair back. "Oh, Neeshka, I'm so glad you're alive."

"Well, so am I! Being killed wasn't much fun, and that geas wasn't exactly a bundle of laughs either." Her tail lashed like a cat's as her grin stretched from one spotted side of her face to the other. "Where have you _been_?"

"Rashemen," Tarva told her. "Here, let me introduce you: this is Safiya, and this is Gann –"

"- her _betrothed_ ," Khelgar interrupted.

"Ooooh, really?" With no more warning than that, Gann found himself squeezed nearly in half by a very enthusiastic hug. He exchanged a glance with Tarva, then patted a shoulder somewhat awkwardly. "Then I promise not to steal all your stuff!" Brown eyes beamed up at him. "You're very blue, aren't you?"

"Not as blue as I could be," Gann replied as the tiefling stood up again. Safiya offered her a hand, which she shook.

"All the tact of a pair of mating bugbears," Sand muttered to Safiya, who choked.

"I want to hear the whole story," Khelgar demanded. "With ale to wash it down."

"Right!" Neeshka said, and scurried toward the bar. She vaulted over it lightly and started pouring out tankards with the grace and efficiency that spoke of long practice.

"Wait," Tarva said, "Neeshka, you –"

"I run this place!" the tiefling grinned. "I didn't really want to leave while you were still missing, and once I was Neverwinter's greatest thief, there wasn't really anything left in the city either, so I was sort of ready to retire, but not _retire_ -retire, and anyway they needed somebody to keep an eye on things, and rogues make for the best innkeepers, as your uncle says. Nobody steals a purse in my tavern!"

"Except you," Tarva said, a smile lurking about the corners of her mouth.

"Only if they're really rich and really rude," she said cheerfully, bringing the ale over to the table Khelgar had claimed. Gann took a cautious sip and discovered it was actually quite palatable.

"Before we get down to business," Khelgar said, "lass, ye'll never hear me say a word 'gainst your relatives, but as guardians for ye, they've proved piss-poor. Yer father sent you on this whole caper without anyone to watch yer back, and yer uncle couldn't even keep the gith out of the Flagon."

Tarva stared at him, her face still and unfriendly as only criticism of her father made it.

"But what can ye expect from elf-blood?"

"I see your attitudes remain as charming as your personal fragrance," Sand muttered.

"It takes a dwarf to get things done right," Khelgar declared, ignoring Sand, "so I guess it's up to me." The dwarf turned to stare at Gann. "Nobody denies the right of lasses to choose as they please, but that doesn't mean ye're worthy of her."

"Oh, really?" Gann laughed.

"Gann has proven his worth a thousand times over," Tarva said, her voice quiet but very firm. She'd never tolerated challenges against him, either.

"Not to me," Khelgar said, and set his elbow to the table, forearm up, hand open and an unmistakeable challenge in his eyes.

"Oh, this should be amusing," Safiya observed in an aside to Sand.

"Khelgar," Tarva said, a soft and definite warning.

"Not yer business, lass," he said, and leaned forward. "Well? Are ye man enough for her?"

There was no good reason to be baited – he knew how Tarva loved him, and he certainly didn't need to prove himself to the loud-mouthed dwarf, but somehow Gann found himself sitting opposite the dwarf and taking his hand. Tarva stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder – and judging by the way the dwarf avoiding her gaze, giving him a glare a basilisk would envy.

"Five gold on the stumpy dwarf," Neeshka said as she passed the table, on her way to another bunch of customers.

"Ready?" Khelgar asked; Gann braced, and then nodded.

Muscles locked and strained against each other; Tarva squeezed his shoulder; Gann pushed – and the back of his hand hit the table.

Khelgar roared in laughter. "Ye'll have to do better than that, lad!"

"Sweet Mystra," Sand muttered, as Gann flexed his fingers. "I get enough of this nonsense just walking through the Docks." He stood and offered Safiya his arm in invitation. "I prefer a milieu with at least a pretence of civilization and conversation of a higher standard."

Safiya took it, and they left the tavern together.

"Oh, that was smooth," Neeshka commented, topping up Khelgar's tankard. "But Sand? Huh. Guess you never can tell."

"I'm sorry?" Tarva asked.

"Later," Gann told her, as he and Khelgar squared off again. Prepared this time, Gann took a deep breath and declared himself ready.

His defeat followed almost instantaneously.

"Now, that's just pathetic," the dwarf shook his head.

"Enough," Tarva declared, and distracted Khelgar by beginning the tale of their adventures.

They talked and they drank, as the afternoon turned to evening and the evening wore away. "Ye mean, I missed the chance to battle a _god?"_ Khelgar exclaimed.

"There wasn't much of a battle," Gann corrected him, and hiccupped. "She just reached out and gobbled him up."

And later: "Ye mean, ye fought yer way through the land of the dead without me? That's it, lass, I'm never letting you out of my sight again. All these grand adventures I missed!"

And very much later, Neeshka lined up a long row of tankards in front of them and Khelgar offered Gann one last chance to prove himself worthy of Tarva.

Tarva, who was sitting on his lap at the time, seemed to think it was a bad idea, but he felt fine. She felt better; all the lovely lines of her face and ears and throat were very nice to trace over, and he'd somehow managed to untuck enough of her shirt to draw patterns on the soft skin over her spine. She said something else, but her voice was so pretty he missed working out the actual words.

He saw no reason not to put the dwarf in his place... seeing was a little tricky, anyway. There was a very pleasant haze about the little tavern and its people.

He reached for the first tankard and drained it into his mouth.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Accept it, Khelgar, or face _me."_ The voice was not close, nor loud, but it might as well have been a dagger stabbed directly in his ears. It was just as painful as the slivers of sunlight poking under his eyelids. He pulled a pillow over his face. With any luck, he'd suffocate...

"Not in the Nine Hells," the dwarf bellowed, sounding far too ebullient for Gann's aching head. "Ye'd kick my hairy arse from one end of the Keep to the other, lass."

"Yes. I would." The pounding of footsteps, the banging of the door, and Gann let out a heartfelt groan. It made his head hurt more, so he stopped. The door hinges whined.

A tread so light it was barely audible, and, soft and soothing, a voice murmured his name.

"Ugh," was the most coherent thing he could manage in answer.

"Indeed," she commented, and he could hear her smile in that word. She made a small clunking noise, and then her arms was about his shoulders, pulling him upright against his protests. "No, I'm not going to let you die. I brought water." Tarva closed his hand about a cup, cold and covered in condensed moisture; he pressed it against his forehead and felt some of the pounding swiftly dissipate.

"Whuh-"

"You fool," she chided him affectionately. "You tried to out-drink Khelgar."

"After the arm-wrestling?" He remembered that bit; his arm ached too. He tried to unstick his eyelids, and was rewarded for his efforts by the sight of Tarva, perched beside him on the bed, her dark hair loose over the shoulders of her white shirt... and with a rather large purple mark on her throat.

"Much after." She brushed a lock of hair away from his face, leaving blessed coolness in her wake. "You were about half-gone by then, I think."

"Ah... your throat?" Gann asked the question, afraid he already knew the answer.

"That came about four tankards in. Neeshka said she didn't believe we were really betrothed – despite the fact I was sitting on your lap – and you decided to demonstrate, I think." She paused as Gann groaned. He'd suddenly remembered – "And then you took your shirt off." Her dark eyes were alight. "I confess, I liked that part."

"But?" he said, hearing it...

"Well, so did every other woman in the tavern – and there were a few by then. So you decided to show them all just how much you cared for me." Gann raised his arm; she slid in next to him. Her head nestled on his shoulder, she continued. "Not that I didn't... well... but I still had to stop you before you took _my_ shirt off."

Gann stuttered an apology.

"And then you started dancing."

"Now you must be mocking me. I deserve it, but -"

"Never," Tarva said. "It was quite impressive, really – all those squatting kicks are Rashemi style, apparently. You must show me some time when you're sober. Well. Then you jumped up on a table and passed out."

"It must have been such a relief to you." Gann shook his head and immediately wished he hadn't. He'd barely started meeting her friends, and already he'd made an absolute idiot of himself. "I'm sorry, Tarva. I didn't mean-"

"Shhh," she laid her finger against his lips. "Don't worry about it. I don't mind. Anyone who'd be offended, like Sir Nevalle, was elsewhere. Khelgar still wasn't satisfied, but I settled him. And I bought Neeshka off last night." She must have seen his confusion, for she added, "She can't keep a secret without a bribe."

"But-"

"Don't say it," she warned him, so Gann chose another question instead. The opulence of the room, with its thick carpets and wall-tapestries, posted bed and fireplace, had just sunken in.

"Where are we?"

"The Captain's Suite," Tarva told him. "My quarters... they kept them clear for me, all this time."

"Are we going to live here?"

"Gods, no," she blurted out, then as swiftly amended her outburst. "Unless that's what you want, Gann. We could, easily; I poured a large quantity of gold into this Keep and Lord Nasher implied he wanted to pay it back. He... wanted me to take up the role of Knight-Captain again. I could." The half-elf was still a moment, then added, "Or there's West Harbour. Neverwinter. Highcliff. We can return to Rashemen, if you wish. You can go home again."

"Home? _Tarva._ " his voice was low and caressing. "My home is wherever you are. The rest doesn't matter." He threaded his fingers into the soft, dense cloud of her hair. "But... well, I never thought to sound so much like Okku, but that city... I was glad to leave. Its walls were far too confining." He was silent a moment, then added, "And the spirits here are so strange, so unnaturally distant. I don't think they even owe fealty to Okku. It feels as I imagine being half-deaf might – there are no whispers from the spirit world. They don't talk to me. You must have noticed it yourself."

"No. No, that was part of the Hunger. I'm no more sensitive to the spirits now than ever Kaelyn was."

He wanted to ask about that, but kept on topic instead. "What do you want, Tarva? Where is home for you?"

"Not here," she said softly. "I thought... it used to be West Harbour. I still want to go back there. I don't know if I can stay there. I don't know if you could. It's a very small place, but it was all I knew for so long."

"We can slip away whenever you want," Gann told her. "Go anywhere, wander freely. But first," he drew her hand to his lips, "we go to West Harbour, and get married – however these things are properly done in your land."

"Yes."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Together they trailed down the long, stone corridors. "Duncan swears by Sand's ale purgative," Tarva told him. "Swears by, and sometimes at, but it will make you feel a lot better."

"Good," Gann said. "Please, stop me if I ever try anything like that ever again."

"I will," she smiled, and quietened as voices drifted to them. Even with doors closed, the sounds travelled clearly.

Sand's voice was raised, chanting a spell Gann didn't recognise. More technical discussion? Didn't the wizards ever get tired of it?

It was followed by a soft sound he'd never heard Safiya make before, something between a gasp and a breathless laugh. He only knew it was Safiya because she then said, "Speaking in my professional capacity-"

"- as deposed instructress of a Red Wizard Academy?" Sand interjected, snide as a cat.

"- as deposed _senior_ instructress, and I'll thank you to remember it – that is _not_ the intended use of Bigby's Grasping Hand."

"Really? And how do you intend to... _correct_ me?" There was a tone to those words, almost... almost suggestive.

Safiya's voice, still half laughing, chanted another spell.

"Epantiras's Greater Stripping?" Sand asked. "There aren't twenty wizards I've met in my life who know of that spell, let alone have it in their spellbook."

"I _am_ a wizard," Safiya protested, her voice low and husky. "I believe in being prepared for anything."

A masculine chuckle of extreme self-satisfaction, followed by what could only be a kiss of some intensity. Gann was rather an expert in the area, and clearly both parties were very well pleased by the current state of events.

Well, apparently they _could_ get tired of technical discussion.

"This is not somewhere we need to be," Tarva whispered, tugging Gann away.

"Agreed."

They didn't get away quite fast enough to escape hearing Safiya say, "I must confess, when I studied Greater Spell Penetration, that wasn't really what I had in mind."

"Are you complaining?"

"Not in the least.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drunk, handsy Gann? I blame Khelgar. 
> 
> And I apologise for the pun. It's not my fault that D&D is so... suggestive.


	81. Epilogue III : West Harbour

Nevalle had scheduled a formal farewell for early morning, so they snuck out in the dark hours before dawn. Khelgar and Neeshka were there to say goodbye – Neeshka didn't have anyone else to cover the Tail for her, and despite his earlier words, Khelgar was not going to tag along as far as the Mere of Dead Men - "got to keep Keros in his place, ye ken."

So it was, again, just the four of them on the road. This time, though, watches were kept by two at a time, and nobody was enquiring too closely about how watchful the pair on duty were, or how much sleep the others was getting. In any case, everyone's tempers remained wonderfully sweet; even Sand's sarcasm had a rather half-hearted air to it.

They were, Tarva explained, almost retracing the journey she'd made back at the beginning, when she'd taken the silver shard and travelled to Neverwinter. They bypassed Highcliff and skirted Fort Locke, and stopped at the Weeping Willow Inn. It was not as large as the Tiefling's Tail or as comfortable as the Sunken Flagon, but it was considerably quieter.

"And this dingy little excuse for a place to pass out is the last vestige of civilisation we shall see for some time, I fear," Sand muttered over his dinner. "Once we cross into Merdelain, it will be surly farmers talking incessantly about the weather, hunters grunting over their latest kill, and vast quantities of mud. How charming."

"You forgot the wizards complaining over the rustic conditions," Gann reminded him, attempting to keep a straight face, "as though they expected to perish the moment they left the rarefied air of their ivory towers."

"Hey!" Safiya protested by flicking a pea at Gann, who dodged it neatly.

Sand raised his chin. "We cannot all be rugged barbarian shamans with more hair than refinement."

"No," Tarva agreed quietly. "But I don't see what the trials of Ammon Jerro's Haven have to do with anything."

Sand sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Your sense of loyalty is as irritating as it is admirable."

"That just may be the nicest thing you've ever said about me," the weapon master said.

"Not entirely true," Sand told her. "I once said you clearly took after your mother."

"Did you know her?" Safiya asked.

"Simply because Esmerelle was a moon elf? We are a far-scattered people, dear girl." He paused. "But Duncan did introduce us once."

"You spoke for five minutes. You thought she was boring and she thought you were arrogant," Tarva said.

"So, you actually just called Tarva boring?" Safiya shook her bald head.

"That is not what I said. Do learn to pay attention, Tarva. I said that she was reserved, disinterested in others' opinions, and a poor judge of character."

"She must have been far more perceptive than you say, if she could so accurately discern your inflated view of yourself in five minutes," said Gann.

"Look who's talking," Safiya scoffed, and turned a sly little smile on Sand. "But you _are_ arrogant."

"Not without reason, dear girl."

"Oh, no," she assented, and the party broke up shortly afterwards.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The rutted dirt road wound from the Inn; despite Sand's dire predictions, it was dry and free of mud. Ahead of them, the tall trees of the Mere of Dead Men (Gann still wondered what kind of people would choose to live in a place named so ominously) shut out the sky. There was something uneasy within him. Certainly he was something of a fish out of water in this land, and he was nervous about meeting Tarva's foster father; he knew how important the man was to her, but that did not account for it. The swamp seemed almost to reach out for them, and all his instincts were screaming at him that he'd forgotten something important.

Tarva must have felt it, too, for she turned to look at him as they crossed under the mossy eaves of Merdelain. "Gann, what is it?"

"I-"

 _Shaman!_ A spirit (small and determined; she had been a dwarf once) called in shock.

 _There's a shaman here!_ Another, an elf-child.

 _Shaman, hear me!_ An older human man, and then they swarmed him, desperate and pleading, voices overlapping.

_No, listen to me! Please... It's been so long. I've been lost – I can't find – They're dead and I- Help me, shaman - listen– the Netherese – none of your kind has been – you know the way – I need- please help – our Guardian - my daughter has been gone – killed so many of us – home - so lost – so long – please – send us – find us – help – so many killed so quickly – don't remember how to go – you can help us – trapped – please listen – oh, shaman, you can – won't you free us – the gods forgot – we should never have – it was our only hope – home – we were so afraid -_

They would drown him with their voices, in their need – _shaman, we cannot wake – nothing but fear – we tried so hard – send us – he can't find us – nobody remembers – so very long and you – my family, shattered – the Guardian turned against - we died and we are dying still – forgotten here – no shaman to aid – he destroyed us all – our pride, our folly, our fear - cannot leave – they cannot hear – let us go – so very long – we tried – show us –_

"Gann!"

He opened his eyes (when had they closed?) and saw trees, mules, wizards and a very worried Tarva. His head ached horribly, even though it seemed to be cradled in her lap.

He could still hear them, pleading, whispering, tugging at him for his attention, but Tarva centred him; he could – well, not ignore them, but they could not drown him.

"Gann, what happened? You just toppled–"

"Ah," Sand sighed, as though it suddenly made sense. "Merdelain. The Mere of Dead Men. How many dead still linger here?"

"Very many," Gann answered him. His throat felt like dirt. "They... wanted something. I think they are – trapped? lost? forgotten?" Tarva's hand was gentle and cool against his forehead, smoothing a lock of hair back into place.

"Clerics do not deal with the spirits in the same way you do," Sand commented thoughtfully, "and these lands do not produce very many shamans. I would be unsurprised to learn that you are the first shaman to pass through the Mere since the days of the Illefarn."

"Are you going to grovel in the dirt all day, Gann?" Safiya asked.

"Well, it's very comfortable," he said, and reached up to brush a finger over Tarva's lips. "A lovely spot for a picnic." In a lower tone, only for her ears, Gann added, "Anchor me. I cannot stand against them alone."

"Ride with me," she suggested, and helped him clamber onto her ridiculously tall horse, a task he managed with none of her grace and the accompaniment of wizardly snickering. It was not particularly comfortable, since her saddle wasn't designed for it, but there were other benefits. She swung herself up in front of him; he wrapped his arms about her waist and felt the clamour of spirits recede. "Is it truly so bad?" Tarva asked him, as they started off again, his mule following the others.

"They are only marginally more vocal than Okku and his army were, screaming for your blood."

"Oh," she said, and repeated it in a slightly different tone as Gann took shameless advantage of his current position to whisper a few suggestions in her ear.

-0-0-0-0-0-

They set up a small camp quite deep into the swamp that night. Sand had turned up his nose at their fire before sprinkling a small powder on it, which made it spark blue and repel insects. He and Safiya had retired to the relative privacy of the one tent they'd brought, leaving Gann and Tarva to keep watch. She chose a spot on a fallen log as seat; rather than sit beside her, Gann sat at her feet, leaning back against her legs. "These spirits..."

He needed to say no more than that; she knew what he was asking immediately. "The Illefarn, I think, although the Mere has seen more war than most. The King of Shadows turned against his people here."

"I think I must-"

"I know," she said. "How can I help?"

"Don't leave me," he said, and took her hand in his even as he surrendered his hold on the waking world...

They are waiting for him. _Shaman, please – show us – help us – trapped here – killed us all-_

"Yes," he tells them. "I know, and if you wish it –"

 _YES_.

It is not a task he'd ever needed to perform in Rashemen, for the spirits there are free and happy as guardians of the land; nevertheless, it is part of the shaman's art and he had been taught to perform it – to show the restless dead the way home. He opens his hands; in the space between them, he calls the gate into being.

It glows with a soft silver light, and when the spirits see it, they cry out with joy. They rush toward, him, a veritable flood –

\- and pass through.

It seems like hours that he holds it open for them, but he knows it cannot have been so long before the flow of them slackens and, finally, ceases. Not all have gone; spirits still linger in the Mere, unwilling to leave yet.

 _Thank you,_ one murmurs, so ancient that it cannot remember its race or gender. _I hated to see them like that. If you need my help, shaman, it is yours._

He thanks the spirit in turn, and follows the Dreamer's Heart and the touch of Tarva's hand back.

"... that was surprisingly tiring," he said, drawing her hand to his lips. "But those who wished to be at rest, now are."

Tarva reclaimed her hand, but only to thread her fingers through his hair as he relaxed against her. "Sometimes," she said, voice low and passionate, "sometimes over the past week, I have known that all this is real only because I could never have imagined it. To be free of shard and curse and obligations... to have someone like you in my life, to love and be loved in return so easily and wholly – "

"What?" he asked, twisting to face her, kneeling close with her elbows propped on her knees. "You surely did not envisage a life lived alone?"

"I did," she admitted, eyes closed, brow resting against his. "No longer."

He breathed her name as he brought his mouth to hers –

\- her head flew up. "Someone's here."

He smothered the urge to curse the interruption, instead turning around to see an over-sized badger snuffling among the trees, at the very edge of the firelight. "You are worried about being seen by a badger?"

"That's Naloch." Tarva stood, drawing him up with her. "He's Elanee's companion."

"Elanee..." Gann tried to remember. "The druid who abandoned you?"

"Yes," but it wasn't Tarva who answered. The light flickered with a passing breeze, and suddenly what Gann had taken for a slender sapling was an elf, twigs tangled in her brown hair, her loose robe tattered and torn. She looked ready to flee at any instant. "Yes, I did. For the good of Merdelain."

"Elanee," Tarva greeted her, voice level and emotionless. She did not release Gann's hands.

"Tarva," the elf said in return, her eyes wide and pleading. "The trees whispered you had returned, but I could not believe it."

"As you see," his beloved answered, her voice soft and cold, "I have. Forgive me for trespassing once again on the lands you tend."

"Please," the word was almost rung out of the druid. "I want... Tarva, I want to ask your forgiveness. I deserve your coldness, I know. I was so sure I knew what was right. But it was not my efforts that lifted the shadow from Merdelain."

"It could have been. You could have stayed with us, as you had promised. You knew your Elders were corrupted, you knew the source of the poison and that we battled it." Gann wrapped his arms close about her, as Tarva took a deep, steadying breath. "Elanee, _why_? I thought... I thought you, of all of us, understood what we were fighting for."

"I did," the druid said. "Perhaps too well. We spoke of finding a way to confront the King of Shadows – but Merdelain was dying. I have cared for this land from my earliest days... how could I leave it to die alone?"

"You could have trusted me. You could have told me." Elanee opened her mouth to say something; Tarva shook her head wearily. "Well, it doesn't matter now. It's past. The King of Shadows is gone; the Mere remains."

"Will you forg-"

"You abandoned me. I didn't understand what you needed. We failed each other equally." She shrugged. "It's done."

"I – I can ask no more of you," Elanee said, and faded back into the trees, the grey badger beside her.

Strain his eyes as he might, Gann could not make out her shape. "She's gone?" he asked.

"Yes," Tarva said, and sat down as though her legs had collapsed beneath her.

"Without a word of introduction or farewell?"

"She never felt the need for such things. She only saw the Mere," Tarva said, in that way that indicated she would say nothing more on the subject. She leant her head against him and they were silent for a time.

In the fitful light of the fire, her face was as simple as a sleepy child's, but far more shadowed; no laughter, nothing but a reaching for comfort. She spoke, her words slow, drained empty, utterly honest. "I'm afraid, Gann."

"You, brave one? Never."

"Often," she corrected him, and sighed. "Father... I'm not sure how I can face him. I'm so much less than I was, so different from how he wished me to be. I never wanted to disappoint him, but I've done nothing else all my life. Not quick enough, can't read a trail, move as loudly as a dwarf... His wife died for me. What a poor bargain that proved f–"

" _No_." He would not listen to those poisonous lies for one instant more. This – _this_ was what she had believed for so long - he knew what it sounded like when the words you'd clutched like thorns to your heart were finally torn free. His mother had not abandoned him. Her father did not despise her. Even if he did – "No," he repeated, just as vehemently. "Not one more word of that." Gann could see the 'but' forming on her lips, and laid his finger against them to forestall it. "If your father cannot see past his own prejudices to realise what a wonder you are, then he is a fool," and before her eyes could turn cold, he added, "and I do not believe a fool could have raised you. You are the strongest person I know."

"Not so," Tarva said softly. "I know at least two stronger." After a moment, she added, "Your parents." He nodded, for there were still no words, and then she sighed and dropped back to the topic. "I just... I want him to accept you. Us."

'Want', she'd said, but 'need' was in her tone. Knowing how she deeply she cared for her father, Gann was rather of the opinion that he 'needed' the elf's blessing himself. But that was a problem for another day, and there was little he could do about it.

"Besides being strong, wonderful and rather terrifying in combat," he said, trailing his fingers along the line of her jaw, coaxing her mouth towards his, "you are also the second most beautiful person I have ever met."

"Behind yourself, naturally?" There was laughter in her eyes, but it could not quite dispel her trepidation.

"Of course," he said, and claimed her mouth in a hungry kiss.

-0-0-0-0-0-

They reached West Harbour the following day. Sunlight slanted through the trees to welcome them, softening and gilding the harsh lines of the ramshackle, half-rebuilt village. It still looked considerably better than it had within her soul.

Tarva dismounted nimbly, and he slid down – somewhat less gracefully – into her waiting arms. "The spirits?" she murmured.

"Quiet," he murmured, "thank you," and tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear.

"Uhm." The sound was not quite a cough, not quite a hum, but very definitely one of the most efficient indicators of terrible embarrassment that Gann had ever heard. He looked away from Tarva, and spotted the person who'd made the awkward noise: a tall, stocky man with brown hair and blue eyes, wearing chainmail and the expression of a baffled ox. Gann had seen him in the depths of Tarva's soul...

"Bevil," Tarva turned from Gann and greeted him with some warmth.

"Ah, we got Duncan's pigeon, but we didn't ex-"

"You are reading my father's messages now?" Her face gave nothing away, but apparently Bevil knew the danger signals as well as Gann did.

He held his hands up, shook his head. "Tarva, we rebuilt the house for him, but he doesn't spend any time in it. He comes in from the Mere, trades some skins perhaps – not as many as usual – and leaves again. I haven't seen him in weeks."

"Then I will go out to the Mere."

"You, to track a elven ranger?" Sand interjected, one eyebrow raised. "There was a reason Bishop travelled with us, you may recall. You could not follow a pack of githyanki through a village; you will not find Daeghun in the Mere."

The wizard had a point; Tarva was not particularly adept in the wilderness. Gann was, but he also tended to take shortcuts when tracking... he closed his eyes and reached out.

The response is immediate: _Shaman?_

"I seek an elf within the Mere. A man, brown-haired, a ranger-"

_The Hunter. Yes. We know him._

_He searches within the old stones. His quarry knows where._

They say no more.

Gann raised his head. "He looks for you," he said, and saw how she had to hide the sudden vulnerability in her eyes. "Within the old stones, the spirits said, and that you would know where."

"The old stone. The ruins. Yes," Tarva said.

"Wait, you're just going to go haring off into the Mere again?" Bevil asked. "You aren't going to tell me where you've been all this time? Not even going to introduce me to the bald girl and the blue man?"

Sand sniffed. "Given your learning curve and your lifespan, I should not be surprised that you have not yet mastered basic tact, Sergeant."

"Tarva just turns up after months, doesn't even say 'hello', and I'm the rude one?"

"Gannayev-of-Dreams and Safiya," Sand performed the crude introduction, dismissing the question of manners. "Well, I shall attempt to make myself comfortable here while you go out tramping through the Mere and through those dusty old Illefarn ruins."

" _Illefarn_ ruins?" Safiya asked, a wide grin on her face. "Then I'm coming with you."

"Dear girl, it is a heap of rocks. If there was anything of interest there, it was destroyed when the place came tumbling down upon our heads – an event of which my memories are hardly fond."

Safiya flicked the point of his ear. "You may curl up like a cat and purr, if you want," she said, "but I'm curious, and I'm going."

Sand heaved a martyr's sigh. "Well, I suppose someone must keep you all out of trouble."

"You're really doing this?" Bevil asked.

Tarva nodded. "I will tell you everything you wish to know when we return."


	82. Epilogue IV : Family

The narrow path through the Mere, through distinct, was overgrown, and barely wide enough for one of them to pass at a time. There were wider trails, Tarva explained, even a couple where they could have ridden instead of walking, but this was the quickest way to the ruins where they had battled the King of Shadows.

The ruins where they would find her father.

Gann could still read the apprehension she had spoken of before, in her eyes and in the pace she set through the Mere. It was contagious. "Are we almost there?"

They were. Among marshy pools fringed with reeds there was an enormous pile of rubble. A few pillars were still intact; one of them even stood, holding up nothing but a bird's nest.

"How did you survive _this_?" Safiya asked Sand as they approached the ruins.

"Polymorph Self is a very useful spell. I merely chose a proverbially indestructible form."

"I'm having some difficulty imagining you turning into a cockroach."

Sand wrinkled his nose in distaste. " _Please_. No. An iron golem."

"Oh, really?" Safiya laughed. "With an iron control rod, I suppose?"

"He was here," Gann said, poking at a rock with a scorch mark.

"There – " Sand said, and pointed to a mossy rock. A mossy rock that, as they hurried closer, resolved itself into the brown and green-clad figure of a man slumped over on himself. He seemed to have simply passed out where he sat.

"Father!" Tarva cried out, falling to her knees in front of him, reaching out to him even as Gann shaped a healing spell.

He didn't look wounded – until Gann's gaze fell on the man's hands, covered in a multitude of cuts, bruises and scrapes both old and new. As though... as though he'd torn every stone about them from the building with his bare hands. Gann's spell closed and healed the damage, but the image lingered in his mind nevertheless.

Green eyes opened, fixing on Tarva with an intense expression Gann could not read at all. It might have been anger; it might have been pity. He simply could not tell. " _Afver'larior_ ," Daeghun said. The word – surely Elvish – was voiced as vehemently as a curse.

Behind them, Sand spluttered.

"Father." Her hands were trembling.

"Tarva," the elf acknowledged her. Tarva's face was usually impassive, but it was as open as Kaji's compared to her father's. The elf studied her for a moment, then inclined his head. "You look well."

"Are you all right?"

"Now, yes," Daeghun said, and got to his feet, ignoring the hand Tarva offered him. "My thanks for your spell, stranger."

"Gannayev-of-Dreams," Gann introduced himself. He looked at Tarva, a question in his eyes: should he say more?

"Father, Gann and I are betrothed," Tarva said. At the sound of a small cough, she added, "And this is my friend Safiya. I'm sure you remember Sand."

"Indeed," Daeghun's eyes had not left Gann. "Can you use that bow?"

The question surprised him, but – "Of course."

"Good. We're going hunting." He turned his attention on Tarva. "I trust you to take care of matters at home. Bevil has the key. We should not be long." That was all he said to the daughter he'd believed lost?

"Yes, father," Tarva said. She looked up at Gann, her eyes full of love, but said nothing more than "Hunt well."

"Naturally," Gann said, and began to reach for her; she shook her head minutely. He didn't like that at all. She had kissed him in front of Duncan, but would not even touch him where Daeghun would see? Well, in Gann's experience, fathers were a dangerous and unpredictable breed at the best of times. He hoped Daeghun wasn't about to just stick an arrow in him and call it a day.

As Daeghun restrung his bow, Safiya, Sand and Tarva began to walk away. Safiya's voice was raised, intended to carry her words back to Daeghun. "I can't say I'm particularly impressed by your father, Tarva. After all this time, his idea of a greeting is swearing at you in Elvish?"

"That was-" Sand said, the rest of his words lost as they disappeared beneath the trees.

Gann looked over at Daeghun. He stood head and shoulders above the other man, but under the elf's scrutiny, he felt much shorter. He had to make an effort not to hunch. "What game do you intend to pursue?"

Not one muscle of Daeghun's face shifted, there was not the slightest change in his voice, so it was difficult to say why he suddenly sounded so scornful. "It would not be prudent to decide before you have found a trail."

He had a point. Gann closed his eyes, conferred with the spirits. Daeghun was looking at him very oddly when he opened them again. "There is a stag – older, and he has not weathered the winter well – not quite a mile south. Or there's a boar, if you prefer, north-east, about a mile and a half."

"You are a druid?"

"A shaman," Gann corrected him.

"I see." It was almost impossible to infer anything from that, but Gann had the impression (perhaps it was only wishful thinking) that Daeghun considered that a point in his favour. "And what are you? You are not human." Clearly Tarva had learnt tact from someone other than her father.

Now was probably not the best time to trot out his favourite 'born of a dream' explanation. "My father was. My mother is - or was – a hag."

"I see," the elf repeated, as emotionlessly as before. "I think the deer is the better choice. Lead."

Gann did, and had to look back to make sure that Daeghun was following; the ranger was as silent as a spirit. He had grown too used to the clank of Tarva's armour or Kaji's chatter. The cool assessment in the green eyes was unnerving too; they had not been walking long before Gann's nerves failed him entirely. If he didn't say something, he'd start shrieking – or something equally undignified.

He chose to talk. "Tarva," Gann spoke her name into the uneasy quiet, "who she is, what she's done... you must be very proud."

"Why should I? It has nothing to do with me." A neutral, disinterested tone – as though he was discussing the weather, and not the woman Gann loved beyond life.

Gann stopped, turned to face Daeghun. He could feel his hands curling into fists and made no effort to stop it. How could the elf dismiss her so easily? How dare he? "It has _everything_ to do with you – she's your daughter!"

"Foster daughter." Daeghun's face was utterly expressionless.

"Your daughter, in every way that matters to _her_." That provoked nothing more than a swiftly drawn breath. Gann looked at him, trying to understand. "Does she mean nothing to you?"

"You cannot understand," he said, as if that was an end to the matter.

It wasn't. "No, I don't think I can. I have been at her side for months. I have seen her hold an invincible bear god at bay; I have seen her fight hags, spirits, Red Wizards and a curse that would do more that destroy her. Only a few things have ever visibly frightened her – that curse, the Wall of the Faithless, the dead god, the Crusade. And only _once_ have I ever heard her admit to her fear – and that was last night, when she spoke of meeting you again, and how she thought you would be disappointed in her." There was a flicker in Daeghun's stare, and the elf opened his mouth – but Gann did not allow him the opening. He hadn't realised just how much he had to say to the man.

"I didn't believe for an instant that anyone could set standards so high that Tarva could not exceed them. I didn't think anyone could be blind to her strength and her beauty – except Tarva, for she constantly undervalues herself... and now I see where she learnt it!

"Do you have any _idea_ what you did to her? She worships you – she won't hear a word against you, and I have no idea why. It seems to me that all you ever did was teach her distrust and silence!" He threw his hands up. "For months you believe she's dead, and when she turns up alive and well, you dismiss her immediately. I don't know why she accepts it. I think I had better parents – and my mother was forced to eat my father, then cast me to the wilds for animal spirits to raise! Would it kill you to tell her –"

A sudden stab of fierce, sharp joy cut through his heating fury and caught him completely off-guard. Why should he feel happy? Gann realised the error a moment later. It was not his joy; it was Tarva's, shared through the Dreamer's Heart, just as Skyla Avolov said might come to pass.

That moment's pause was enough.

"Why do you think I am unaware of all this?" Daeghun said quietly. "I know better than you do. I had no right to raise her; it was selfish of me even to try. Others offered, others who knew how to care for a child – even my half-brother would have been a better choice than I, and he is a _drunk_. She deserved better than me."

He exhaled slowly, as though the air burnt his throat. "But I could not let her go... she was the last link to my Shayla, her last promise, the child she'd loved like her own. My weakness, and I curse it. I failed her a hundred times over. I betrayed her trust by lying to her when the truth was too painful to voice." His hands flexed on his bow in a convulsive, helpless movement. "Her achievements have nothing to do with me, because she did them despite my failures as a father. I tried my pitiful best, but I could not atone for my weakness, the first time I failed her by refusing to give her up. But what else could I do?" Daeghun raised his eyes, green and haunted as the Mere. "You love my fos- my daughter. Tell me, shaman, what would you do if you lost her? If she was gone, but there was just one tie to her left?"

 _If he lost Tarva_... Even knowing that the Dreamer's Heart would not leave him bereft of her love and her presence, the thought was unendurable. It drove out all his anger. "For weeks, I thought I would," he said slowly. "Once, I thought I had." Gann looked down at the elf. "I... I understand."

There was a moment of deep silence, then Daeghun offered Gann his hand. "Do not fail her. Do not betray her. I would never forgive."

Gann took it, remembering... "I promised you this once before, in a dream of Tarva's. I didn't mean it then. But this is truth – and I will do my best."

"Good," Daeghun said. He didn't smile, but there was an easing in the air between them. "Now... how far away has that stag wandered?"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Gann found her upstairs in the little house. The room was small, a little shabby, but meticulously cleaned. She turned a small ball over in her hands, running a finger along the frayed stitching that joined the faded leather.

"Tarva," he called her softly, leaning in the doorway. There was something bright and fragile in her eyes as she went to him; she was shaking a little as he enfolded her in his arms. "My love," he said, stroking his thumbs over her high cheekbones, "your father is outside butchering a deer, and wishes a word with you."

"Then I'll go," she said simply, but reached up to thread her hands in his hair, drawing his mouth down to where she could reach it. Her kiss was loving and lingering, a promise of more made without words. He nipped at her lip when she would have ended it, surprising a breathless little laugh from her that went straight to his self-control–"Better go," he told Tarva.

She nodded. "I asked Sand to tell you something he told me –"

"I'll talk to him," he said, and took a couple of minutes before he went downstairs himself.

Gann entered the room unnoticed; the two wizards were far too caught up in arguing whether air essences or water essences were more useful. Sand contended that air was inherently less stable, while Safiya was firmly of the opinion that water was not subtle enough.

"There are more air elementals," Gann interjected his opinion, " and they are rather more friendly. Water is more self-sufficient."

"See?" Safiya gave Sand a smug little smile.

"That was not a relevant argument;" the elf dismissed Gann's point, "the amiability of the spirits has nothing to do with it... but we can return to this later. I take it Tarva sent you, Gann?" He nodded, and Sand sighed. "As I said to her, I despise meddling in family matters... but if Daeghun had just taught her Elvish, as was his duty, or if she'd allowed me to teach her, it would not have been necessary. There are some things of which one should not ignorant – and if Tarva wishes you to know as well, then I shall, humbly, oblige her."

Gann leaned against a wall and fixed his attention on Sand. This sounded important.

"He called her _afver'larior_."

"It sounded like a curse," Gann said.

"Far from it," Sand told him. "It's a... hmmm... 'endearment' is still the best way of putting it, but Common is such a limited tongue. It's not a word said lightly, or often – in four hundred years, I have heard it only once before. I translated it several ways for Tarva... you might say "beloved burden"; you might say "heartbeat"; even "purpose of my days." It's all one messy tangle of love, meaning, need and the utter... futility? horror? impossibility? of a world in which the other is not."

Gann thought about what he had said to Daeghun, and how the man had responded, and wished fervently that Sand had found some way to explain it to him before he'd opened his mouth. Well, that certainly explained why Tarva had been so happy.

"He was surprised to see her," Sand continued, "but even so, he would not have called her by that name unless that was how he habitually thought of her... not just his daughter, but his very reason for living.

"Daeghun is very young," the moon elf added, as though to counterbalance what he'd said, "barely two hundred years old – although that does not mean he didn't know what he was saying. He acts before he thinks and he feels things strongly; a tendency exacerbated by the losses he has suffered. He could have expected three hundred years with Shayla; they had forty. If he lives long enough, he will see many more losses. It is not a thing to which one ever grows inured."

"How do you manage?" Safiya asked him softly.

Something intensely private shone in his pale eyes when he looked at her; Gann glanced down swiftly, but would have named it 'hope'. "I make a point of finding new – and better – reasons to care."

Gann slipped away, leaving them to it.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Spring came early to the Sword Coast, and lingered long - or maybe it just seemed that way to Gann, who was used to Rashemen's late-blossoming and reluctant spring. Despite his impatience, Tarva had insisted that they wanted to wait until late spring, at the very earliest, for their wedding; once she'd explained exactly how a traditional Chauntean marriage was performed, he was forced to agree it was probably wise.

It didn't make him any more patient, though.

In the meantime, they wandered all over the countryside, revisiting Tarva's old haunts, the scenes of her victories and her losses. Most often they were four, with Sand and Safiya, but Daeghun came to Neverwinter with them, as they'd promised Duncan. Neeshka and Khelgar came with them to the ruins of Ammon Jerro's Haven, where Shandra had died.

They did not see Elanee again.

They explored the Ruins of Arvahn, as Safiya had wanted. They stood empty now; Riverguard Keep was deserted, the doors of the Temple of Seasons stood open, and the Statues of Purification were quiescent. Safiya spent hours poking at the Song Portals – she had all of Nefris's knowledge, she explained, and what she would be able to do with an existing portal network was nothing short of incredible. And very tempting, apparently. Within the Gem Mines, Tarva woke one of the blue Ghost Lights with a touch, but the spirits that once roamed the hall had gone.

Safiya stooped to pick up a crumbling book on the way out. "Such a waste. All that knowledge, lost..."

"I suppose Balaur passed to his rest as he'd hoped," Tarva said.

Sand smiled. "I did a little family research – vey enlightening. It turns out we were probably related."

"I _thought_ he sounded familiar."

They saw the town of Ember, slowly rebuilding, and were greeted warmly by a woman named Alaine and a lad called Marcus. They spoke with Nya in Port Llast, Cormick and Brelaina in Neverwinter, Aldanon and Kana and even Kistrel in Crossroad Keep.

And when the days were long and the nights were warm, they turned for West Harbour.

The priestess Dalla, a small woman as rosy as an apple and the same general shape, met them there and spent an informative couple of days (while the guests arrived) talking about what would be expected from both of them during the ceremony – Tarva had mentioned some of it, but Dalla took them through the whole thing.

There wasn't too much; as she said, "city dwellers and Tyrrans may spend long hours at their devotions, but Chauntea is a goddess for farmers, and farmers are always busy. Besides, their daily chores are in and of themselves acts of worship to her, so there's no need. She's a very practical goddess."

There was, however, some discussion over names. It was usual for women to take their husband's surname but Gann didn't have one.

"It's not necessary, you know," Dalla told them.

"I want to," Tarva said quietly, turning to Gann. "I have no idea who 'El-Auri' was or why my mother wished me to carry his name; he may have sired me, but that's all. His name means nothing to me. I asked Father long ago if I could call myself 'Farlong', but he refused. I would much rather have part of your name than a stranger's."

Gann pressed her hand to his lips, touched by the sentiment. Even after months, the depth of her love, her willingness to display it, even their happiness still surprised him.

"Well, I may have a solution for you," Dalla said cheerfully. "It used to be quite common in some areas, but it's rather fallen out of favour lately. You could just call yourself 'Gannswyf'."

"Tarva Gannswyf," the half-elf repeated slowly, and turned her soft smile on Gann. "I like it. Do you?"

"Tarva..." there were no words save that one, and Dalla excused herself with a knowing smirk, just before he began to kiss Tarva in earnest.

-0-0-0-0-0-

They gathered on the village green as a full moon rose behind the trees, its silvery light warring with the flickering gold of the lanterns. Gann stood by himself at one end of the little wooden platform; Safiya, Daeghun and Duncan, who would speak for them, were standing with the priestess on the other; the guests were gathered about as they waited to begin the first part of the wedding – the pledging.

Dalla nodded, and in response to the signal, Tarva appeared between the houses.

Gann nearly forgot how to breathe.

She wore a dress of crimson that Rashemi women would deem scandalous. Its full skirt fell just beneath her knees, the sleeves were tight to her elbow, then spilled out in a wide bell that covered only half her arm, and a white cloth belt, embroidered in red, displayed the slenderness of her waist. Her gleaming hair was crowned by a garland of white flowers, studded with tiny red ones.

The radiance of her smile and her dark eyes, fixed only on him, the blaze of the Dreamer's Heart, outshone it all.

She stood at the edge of the crowd of guests, and they parted to make way for her.

She did not step forward, not yet.

"Gannayev-of-Dreams, son of Yvae called Gulk'aush and of Yehovinn," Dalla said, her voice carrying clearly, "why do you wait here?"

"I wait for my bride," Gann gave the response he'd been taught, and could not keep from smiling at the word, at the truth.

"How may we know her?" Dalla asked, and waited for his answer – he'd known the shape of it, but the details were spontaneous and unrehearsed, as the rite demanded.

The words flowed easily from him as he looked only at Tarva and tried to describe something of what she was. "She who defeated the King of Shadows, who laid the dead god to rest and brought peace to cursed Akachi. She who gave me revenge, and answers, and truth. She whose eyes are like a midnight sky, whose smile is precious beyond gold. She who is my strength. She who taught me what it is to love."

Her eyes shone, and she dropped her head to blink the joyful tears away.

"How may we call her?" the priestess asked.

"Tarva," he said. "She who waits."

As though she'd only just noticed the woman standing there, Dalla smiled at her. "Tarva El-Auri, born of Esmerelle, daughter of Daeghun." There had been some discussion over that point, too; Tarva had insisted that she would not be identified as 'fostered of Daeghun' on this day, and her father had conceded with barely a protest. "Why do you come here?"

"I come for my bridegroom," she said, and the love and the pride in her voice arrowed straight to his heart.

"How may we know him?"

Tarva took a deep breath and spoke, each phrase slow and measured. "He who walks with the spirits and in dreams. He who saved me and taught me to trust, he who fills my life and gives it meaning. He who is my joy. He whom I love."

"How shall we call him?"

"Gann," she said. "He who waits."

At Dalla's nod, Tarva came to the platform. She stretched out her hands to Gann; he took them (his own were trembling) and drew her to him.

"Who among you," Dalla addressed the three witnesses and the crowd alike, "speaks for these two, and for their right to wed? If there are not three, then the marriage cannot stand."

As the only one who knew them both, Safiya went first. "I, Safiya, daughter of Nefris of Thay. Anyone who challenges this marriage must best me in the duel arcane." Much to nobody's surprise, not a single challenge was heard.

"I, Daeghun Farlong," Tarva's father spoke next, "son of Keris and of Vesghun. Anyone who challenges this marriage must best me in the hunt."

Duncan opened his mouth to speak, but another voice piped up from the front row of the guests. "I, Neeshka. Anyone who challenges this marriage must..." and then she faltered, as a ripple of friendly laughter spread through the gathering. Even Daeghun nearly smiled. "Um... must have everything picked out of his pockets and, uh... avoid me backstabbing him...?"

"Well, what can I add to that, eh?" Duncan laughed, and stepped back.

Dalla held out her hand; Gann and Tarva placed their joined hands on her palm, and the cleric covered them with her other hand. She looked up at Gann. "Gannayev, do you desire to join with this woman?"

He gave the proper answer, the right one. "It is the dearest wish of my heart."

"Tarva, do you desire to join with this man?"

"He is the dearest wish of my heart." That wasn't exactly her line... but nobody minded. Especially not Gann.

Dalla smiled at that, and let go. "Listen, then, to the words of Chauntea, as recorded by her prophet Yosa of the Bridge."

"You'll like this part," Tarva whispered – she was trying for mischief, but couldn't hold it; her mouth kept curving into a tremulous, joyful smile.

"From the beginning of time," Dalla recited, "it has been my will that lovers shall make their pledges before me, so that I may bless them and make their marriage fruitful. They shall make their promises, and I will bind them together, so that they may be no longer two, but one in heart and body.

"They shall go from the assembly, the two who are pledged. They shall go unto the fields and there lie down; for the fields are mine, and I make them fruitful. There they shall taste, and touch, and take joy in each other, learning how best to please-"

"Tarva," Gann muttered through clenched teeth, beginning to be horribly uncomfortable, trying not respond to all the lovely images – and memories – the priestess's words evoked.

" - for it is my desire that husband and wife find delight in each other. Let them drink deep of love –"

"That's the point," she whispered back.

"- and on the night of their pledging, when they are fevered with desire and can hold no longer, the wife shall open to her husband as the furrow to the plough. He shall work in her again and again, readying her to receive his seed, til she bring him to his fall, and rest him then upon the sweat of her breast."

Dalla eyed the two of them, and the guests (many of whom seemed somewhat restless themselves), and grinned. "Go, then, Gann and Tarva: you are pledged. When you return to us tomorrow, we will welcome you as husband and wife."

Gann didn't need to be told twice. Her hand was still held in his, and he dragged her off to the accompaniment of the indulgent laughter of the wedding-guests.

She was breathless with laughter when they arrived at the secluded corner of the field that had been set aside for them. The tall plants sheltered them, and there was a crude straw mattress as well as a small basket full of food – but Gann had eyes only for his bride. He pulled Tarva against him, and tried to pour everything into his kiss - all the love, all the joy, and the urgent need for her.

She fought free long enough to gasp, "Gann, I have to tell you-"

He kissed her again, then said, "So do I. Several things. Your dress is _maddening,_ " and he punctuated his complaint with another kiss as he undid the white belt and let it fall behind her. "And you're mine now. _Mine –"_ another kiss, and Gann ran his hand up her leg, flicking aside the red skirt to touch her. She moaned into his mouth, and the sound sent a shudder down his spine. "And," he said, and stepped back, so that she landed on top of him on the mattress, "I love you more than I can bear."

" _Gann,"_ she said, his name almost a plea on her lips as he dragged her dress up over head, revealing her pale skin. " _My_ Gann. I - oh, gods, I need you." Her hands fumbled at his belt and pushed his trews from his hips. "Look, I thought that maybe," her sentence fractured as he nipped at the long scar across her torso, soothing each little bite with his kiss " – the last few weeks I've been almost sure –" he took the flower garland from her head and tossed it aside – "and just before the ceremony, Dalla told me it was definite."

"What is?" he managed to say, although it meant taking his mouth from its current occupation, which was not a thing he was keen to do. She murmured two words against his ear.

Every time he thought it would be impossible to love her more deeply, that surely their happiness could grow no greater, she proved him wrong. "You're pregnant?" The joy in her eyes was all the confirmation he needed. "Tarva..." She bent her head to kiss him again, but a stray thought struck him. He managed to voice it: "Is this safe, then?"

"Oh, yes," she murmured, which was all he needed. He rolled over, pinning her beneath him - to assuage their mutual need and to try to tell her, without words, how much she meant to him.

-0-0-0-0-0-

They dream together, and she tells him everything of their child that she knows or suspects, and Gann finds there are tears pricking at his eyes. He sets a hand to her flat stomach and vows his protection to the tiny life that grows within her.

He (or she) already has Gann's love.

It isn't supposed to be possible – hagspawn are sterile seed, a useless by-product of the hags – but for once (twice, perhaps three times) the gods have meddled to good ends. He thinks that one day he will accept Chauntea. Any goddess who can grant these blessings is worthy of worship.

Tarva kisses him sweetly and softly, so very softly, fading into insubstantiality even as he raises his hand to caress her lovely face...

... Thunder rumbled across the sky. It had been calm and starlit before, but storm clouds had rolled in as they slept. Tarva was a white shape in the warm darkness, sitting up with her face turned to the sky. "It's going to rain?" Gann asked – not the most intelligent of questions, but surely he could be forgiven under the circumstances.

"Any minute now," Tarva said, as lightning illuminated them for an instant. "I suppose we should head in."

"I thought we were supposed to spend the whole night out here?"

"Yes, but there's no shame in yielding to –" the thunder drowned out the rest of her words, and then the rain came. She laughed.

It was still warm, despite the storm, and her laughter (still too rare a sound) decided Gann. He set his hands to her hips, her skin warm and slick with rain as he guided her above him. Another flash of lightning showed her, head thrown back, white skin and tangled dark hair, all he could ever want, all he could ever need.

-0-0-0-0-0-

They crept back to Daeghun's home in the morning, sopping wet, clinging to each other, leaving muddy footprints on the floor and as happy as two people could ever be. There were dry clothes laid out for them on Tarva's bed, as well as a couple of towels – Duncan's idea, Tarva thought, while Gann made her laugh by suggesting it was evidence of Sand's thoughtfulness.

Dry and dressed, they went back downstairs and Tarva untangled Gann's hair for him. He was returning the favour when Safiya and Sand came down the steps. Safiya was frowning over something she held in her hands; Sand looked quite concerned.

"Safiya! What's the matter?" Tarva was on her feet, yanking her wet hair out of his hands.

The Red Wizard grimaced. "Bad news from home – but don't let it worry you. It just means I won't be able to stick around as long as I'd hoped."

"Tell me," Tarva said.

Safiya shrugged, sitting down as abruptly as if someone had cut her feet out from under her. "Just the usual Red Wizard politics... some joker named Ipslore made a try for Mother's Academy. That's nothing I couldn't sort out, but he's gone a step too far. It would be one thing if he's just destroyed Poruset or killed Master Djafi – not that I would forgive it, but I would understand – but he's been torturing Djafi, and there's no reason for it! Poruset sent the message – Tarva, I have to get back, while there's still something left of him. I can reconfigure the Song Portals at Arvahn, I just need to-"

"Of course," Tarva said, and glanced over her shoulder at Gann, a question in her eyes. He nodded – it was only fair, and it might be fun to challenge a Red Wizard Academy when Tarva wasn't under sentence of death. And... well, while they were over that side of the world, it would be nice to tread Rashemen's soil once more, perhaps see Okku... "We'll come with you," Tarva said.

"Really?" A small crease disappeared from Safiya's forehead. "I wouldn't have asked, but I am glad. It's very possible to take over an Academy with nothing more than arcane casters if you know what you're doing, but they'll never see a healer and a weapon master coming."

"A healer, I'll grant you," Gann said, rising to stand beside Tarva, "but I'm not sure how much use a pregnant weapon master will be."

"Pregnant? Already?" Safiya rushed to hug Tarva. "Congratulations."

"How very Chauntean of you," Sand sniffed, but he was smiling.

"We can leave for Arvahn today," Tarva said. "Just need to say some goodbyes." She smiled. "And you never know, Khelgar or Neeshka might want to come."

"Sweet Mystra, I hope not," Sand groaned.

"They'll be gathering for the party by now," Tarva said. "Let's go break the news – _all_ of the news."

And they stepped out into the waiting world together.

-0-0-0-0-0- **The End** -0-0-0-0-0-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to YoSafBridge for converting to Chauntea and bringing her 'good bible' with her – you can go back to Firefly now.


End file.
